
















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Chap.'EZj Copyright No._ 

Shelf_OQ_2,<2> 5 

UNiTHD STATES OF AMERICA. 






















' « 

















































A Brain Demonstration. 

















DAUGHTERS OF 
AESCULAPIUS 


STORIES WRITTEN BY 


ALUMN/E AND STUDENTS 




OF THE 

WOMAN’S MEDICAL COLLEGE OF 
PENNSYLVANIA 


And edited by a Committee appointed by the Students' 
Association of the College 


PHILADELPHIA 
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
1897 









Copyright, 1897, by George W. Jacobs & Co. 




PREFACE 


O RIGINALITY can hardly be claimed 
for this publication, for many attractive 
collections of college sketches have 
already made their appearance. We believe, 
however, that this is the first book of stories 
by medical women. We hope that the 
“ Daughters of iEsculapius ” will give as 
much pleasure to those to whom they are 
introduced as it gives the editors to introduce 
them. 

We gratefully acknowledge the encourage¬ 
ment and approval of Mrs. Eliza A. Turner, 
Mrs. S. C. F. Hallowed, Dr. Henry Leffmann, 
Miss Louise Stockton, Miss Agnes Repplier, 
Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson, Mr. H. Patterson 
Du Bois, Mr. Kenneth M. Blakiston, Mrs. Mary 
E. Mumford, and Dr. George M. Gould. 


Philadelphia, April 20, 1897. 



















CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

1. The Genius Maker,. 9 

Dr. Eleanor M. Hiestand-Moore. 

Class of 1890. 

2. The Domestic and Professional Life of Ann 

Preston,.31 

Dr. Rebecca Moore. 

Class of 1883. 

3. A Maiden Effort,.43 

Julia Grice. 

Class of 1900. 

4. Mater Dolorosa—Mater Felix,.53 

Dr. Anna M. Fullerton. 

Class of 1882. 

5. One Short Hour, .66 


B. Rosalie Slaughter. 

Class of 1897. 








PAGE 

6. “ The Greatest of These is Love,” .... 80 

Dr. Gertrude A. Walker. 

Class of 1892. 

7. Reminiscences of Medical Study in Europe, 108 

Dr. Kate C. (Hurd) Mead. 

Class of 1888. 

8. A Psycho-physical Study, .123 

Julia Elizabeth Hatton. 

Class of 1899. 

9. Dr. Honora,.133 

Dr. Hester A. Hewlings. 

Class of 1883. 

10. The Home Side.150 


Dr. Alice M. Seabrook. 

Class of 1895. 






ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1. Frontispiece: A Brain Demonstration. 

2. Ann Preston. 

3. One-two-three-four-five. 

4. A Woman’s a Woman for a’ that ! 

5. A Nursery Tea-party. 

6. “ The Queen Cried, ‘ They’re Murdering the 

Time ! Off with their Heads !’ ” 

7. “ Watching for the Oysters to Curl their 


Tails.” 












































































































































































































































































































































































THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“The difference between a stupid person 
and a genius,” observed the Chemist, “ in my 
opinion depends wholly upon the quality of 
the gray matter of the brain. The quantity 
of the matter has little to do with it. One of 
the heaviest brains known, next to that of 
Cuvier, belonged to an idiot.” 

Tom could not dispute this assertion, and 
he had nothing to add to it because he hadn’t 
the dimmest idea what the Chemist was talk¬ 
ing about. All Tom knew was, that he was 
being talked into something to which most 
people would have objected—at least it 
seemed they did, for Tom was the only per¬ 
son who had replied to the following adver¬ 
tisement, for which the Chemist was respon¬ 
sible : 

“ Wanted. — A young man, not over 
twenty-five, who will agree to subject him¬ 
self to certain harmless experiments in chem¬ 
ical psychology. A scientist will pay liber- 
9 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


ally for such a subject, on whom it is proposed 
to test a lately-discovered method of improv¬ 
ing the quality of brains. Apply by letter to 
L. 34,-Office.” 

At the time Tom saw this he was low in 
spirit. He had just seen Dr. Graham, who 
had known him all his life, and the old man 
had told him, as gently as a kind friend could, 
that he thought Tom would do better in the 
grocery business than he would in the study 
of medicine—a timely hint which Tom under¬ 
stood. He had never been much of a success 
as a book learner, and yet he could not make 
up his mind to weighing out tea and sugar 
and soap and candles. Moreover, Tom had 
such an agonizing sense of the loveliness of 
Madelon Carruthers that, as a poor but honest 
gentleman, he felt bound not to see her any 
more. So Tom wrote to L. 34, half in jest, 
being idle from indecision, and then came an 
appointment with the Chemist, who had just 
been talking. 

“ It has often puzzled people,” the learned 
man continued, leaning across the table where 
Tom sat opposite to him, “ to know what 
makes the difference of quality in brain cells 
which are apparently of the same physical 
structure and chemical composition. Perhaps 

10 



THE GENIUS MAKER. 


you do not know,” he went on, sketching on 
a tablet certain queer figures that looked like 
misshapen spiders with long, branching legs, 
“ that as a fact, Mr. McArdle, two brains 
of the same size and structure, with the same 
proportion of gray matter and of the same 
depth of convolutions, brains yielding by 
analysis the same percentage of elements and 
showing under the microscope the same types 
and number, per cubic inch, of nerve cells 
and filaments—two such brains, I say, have, 
nevertheless, manifested during life wide and 
unaccountable differences in intellectual 
power. Now, what makes this difference ?” 
cried the Chemist, so warming to his subject 
that he rose in his chair and thumped the table. 

This question was directed to Tom, who 
evaded it by coughing. Could a man cut out 
for the tea and coffee trade be expected to do 
more ? 

“ It has been shown,” continued the Chem¬ 
ist, “ that the tissue of the brain is built of 
cells which may be compared to the bricks 
used to construct a wall. There may be a 
hundred walls, all built of red brick, of the 
same height, length, and thickness, all built by 
the same bricklayer equally well, and yet one 
outlasts all the others—why ? Because the 

ii 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


brick and mortar in that wall are of a better 
quality. It is just so with brains. But here¬ 
tofore we have believed that this superiority 
was an advantage in the individual for which 
he was not accountable, an accident of birth, 
the gift of heredity, a circumstance fixed and 
unalterable for all time. What fools we have 
been !” he cried, beginning to pace up and 
down the room, waving his long arms with 
extravagant emphasis. “A cell differs from a 
brick because a cell is a living structure. It 
is organized ; it undergoes waste and repair ; 
it never contains the same atoms for any 
length of time. Carbon is replaced by car¬ 
bon, hydrogen by hydrogen, phosphorus by 
phosphorus, and though we find in it always 
the same substances, they are not always the 
same identical parts of matter. The carbon 
atom which once formed a part of a horse’s 
brain may, within a year, become a part of my 
brain. Let me explain,” he said, pausing a 
moment. “ The horse’s brain undergoes 
waste, and this waste is excreted under phy¬ 
siological laws. By the economy of nature, 
this excretion is used in the fertilization of the 
soil; it is taken up by a plant as food; it 
finds its way into an ear of corn ; I eat that 
corn, digest it, assimilate it, it feeds my brain, 
12 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


and—behold! the carbon atom of the horse 
is doing duty in the higher psychical centers 
of man’s brain!” 

Tom moved uneasily. The conversation 
was gradually assuming the form of a lecture, 
and it began to bore him. But the Chemist 
was so much in earnest that he perceived only 
his own ideas. 

“ I have always thought,” he continued, 
“ that by special forms of feeding we could 
modify brains, but I have discovered a better 
method. My brain is better than yours,” he 
said, with calm assurance, “ because its con¬ 
stituent atoms vibrate in space at a different 
rate. Every brain cell has its quota of heat 
electricity, chemism, mechanical motion. 
The sum of these forces is the degree of its 
power. My power is greater than yours, but 
I have discovered a method by which I can 
artificially raise the sum of your elementary 
cerebral forces and make your brain like 
mine!” 

So much of all this was so utterly incom¬ 
prehensible to Tom that it might have been 
the ravings of a lunatic, and he received the 
Chemist’s announcement with a dubious feel¬ 
ing concerning the benefit about to be con¬ 
ferred. 


3 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ How do you propose to do this ?” said 
Tom, who was oppressed by the necessity of 
saying something. 

The Chemist crossed the room and laid his 
hand on a piece of machinery that looked 
like a small dynamo. 

“This machine is my invention,” he said 
proudly. “ It generates a force that is a com¬ 
posite of light, heat, and electricity. These 
are all merely different forms of motion. This 
new composite force, which I call Kinos , 
describes in space ether waves of a hitherto 
unknown form—waves which are—” he 
paused, and, sitting down in front of Tom, 
leaned across the table, his face paling under 
some tremendous impression. “Thesewaves 
of Kinos,” he added in a low tone, “ are coin¬ 
cident with mind waves.” 

He looked at Tom as though he expected 
him to fall upon his knees in adoring awe 
before the expanse of ideas unfolded in the 
disclosure, but the vast truth shot high over 
Tom’s comprehension. There was a moment’s 
silence during which the Chemist’s face re¬ 
laxed into a look of contemptuous astonish¬ 
ment. 

“I am afraid I am boring you, Mr. 
McArdie,” he said, somewhat petulantly, 
14 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ perhaps this detailed explanation is unneces¬ 
sary. Let me add, however, that my investi¬ 
gations have established the fact that what 
we call mind is really a manifestation of force 
in a special form. Mind can make itself 
manifest only through the medium of brain, 
but it is present in space, apart from brain, 
though imperceptible to our senses. A brain 
developing within the range of a special over¬ 
flow of mind waves, becomes the brain of a 
genius. I propose to do a very little thing,” 
he concluded, with fine sarcasm, as he handled 
the glass knob of a cylinder-shaped governor. 
“ I propose to develop mind waves at will.” 

“ Can you do this with safety ?” Tom asked, 
struggling bravely to maintain the appearance 
of intelligent comprehension. 

“ I ask no one to assume a risk,” the 
Chemist replied. “ It is a perfectly safe pro¬ 
cess. Even if it did no good it could not do 
any harm. Moreover, I shall transmit this 
force to the subject through my own body.” 

Standing near the machine was a small 
glass platform. The Chemist stepped upon 
it and fixed one foot in a pedal by which he 
could move the glass handle of the governor. 
Emerging from the machine were two insu¬ 
lated wires which passed to the governor and 

15 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


then out to two terminal poles connected with 
a light, collar-shaped piece of copper. The 
Chemist clasped this about his neck. At the 
same moment he threw his weight on one 
corner of the platform, which tilted slightly. 
An electric bell rang somewhere on a lower 
floor and in a few moments the dynamo 
started. 

“I am about to turn on the force,” said the 
Chemist, calmly. “ There will be a bright 
light generated—a waste of power which I 
have not yet learned how to prevent—but 
otherwise you will notice little or nothing.” 

Now Tom, being a common-sense, every¬ 
day sort of a fellow, had about decided that 
he had to do with a harmless species of scien¬ 
tific crank gone mad over a theory; yet he 
could not dispel the creepy sensation that 
passed over him when he saw the Chemist 
press the pedal which controlled the governor. 
The dynamo was running swiftly but with the 
ease of well adjusted machinery. If the whole 
thing had blown up, Tom would not have 
been much surprised; nor would he have 
cared much, in his present state of mind. Of 
one thing he felt pretty sure,—there would be 
no grocery stores in Heaven, and, perhaps, if 
he ever got there Madelon Carruthers would 
16 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


be just the same to him as to any other angel. 
These were the passing thoughts that were 
broken in upon by the sudden effulgence of a 
light so peculiar that Tom was bewildered by 
it. It was not a very bright light, it did not 
dazzle him in the least. It was rather a radi¬ 
ance, rich and scintillating, that seemed to 
pervade the entire room. Tom looked at the 
Chemist. The aspect of the man was most 
extraordinary. His whole body seemed to 
shine with a soft luminosity that penetrated 
even the thicker folds of his clothing. It was 
a light that did not come merely from the sur¬ 
face but seemed to filter through every cell in 
the man’s body and through every fiber of his 
dress. The illumination was so clearly from 
within that Tom expected every moment, if 
it brightened more, to see the blood circulating 
and the muscles contracting as though the 
body were a transparent medium. Once Tom 
had looked through a microscope at a curious 
aquatic creature called a paramoecium. He 
now recalled that experience. There was this, 
however, which he specially remarked: from 
the head came the greatest effulgence of light, 
a radiance so clearly marked that it sug¬ 
gested the nimbus of the saints in certain queer 
pictures he had seen at Judge Carruthers’ 

17 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


house. From the eyes there appeared to 
come two lambent rays which, as Tom looked 
on them, seemed to penetrate his own brain. 
A strange sense of exhilaration stirred his lan¬ 
guid spirit. As he looked down at his hands 
he saw that they too had begun to shine. 
What was it, he asked himself, this intoxica¬ 
ting sense of power that seemed to animate 
the very marrow of his bones ? It roused and 
startled him ; he was about to cry out when 
there came echoing down the untrodden path 
of an old memory the full Latin text of an 
ode by Horace. 

With little effort he formulated in his mind 
the following English rendering : 

“ I was a remiss and infrequent worshiper of the gods, 

While I was straying in pursuit of a senseless philosophy; 
Now I am compelled to set sail back again, 

And to retrace my wandering steps. 

For Jupiter, frequently cleaving the clouds,— 

With flashing lightning has driven his thundering horses 
And swift chariot through a serene sky; 

By which the sluggish earth and wandering rivers, 

By which Styx and the dreadful seat of hateful Tsemarus 
And the Atlantic boundary were shaken. 

The Deity is able to change the lowest with the highest, 
And raising the obscure, abases the lofty ; 

Rapacious fortune, with a clattering sound, 

Snatched her crown ; hence she delights to have placed it 
upon another.” 

18 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


There is a case on record of an ignorant 
servant girl, employed in the family of a great 
scholar, and accustomed to hear him read 
aloud and declaim in Greek and Latin, of 
which she did not understand a single word. 
Years after she had left the service of this 
family she was stricken with a fever, and in 
her delirium she was heard to recite pages of 
Homer and Virgil which had been stored 
away in those unconscious brain cells, where 
every spoken word had left its impression. 
Science has proved this possible, and such 
was the experience of Tom, whose mind, 
awaking to new activities, seemed to be making 
a raid upon the secret stores of memory. 
Even the old “ Barbara Celarent ” came back 
to him, and to his utter amazement he under¬ 
stood what the lines meant! Ideas seemed to 
crowd and press upon him, and yet he had no 
sense of that whirling bewilderment which 
pervades an overstocked brain. He enjoyed 
thinking; he thrilled with the recollection of 
the Binomial Theorem ; he amused himself 
by saying the Roman Emperors backwards. 

“ Good Heavens !” Tom exclaimed at length, 
“ I had no idea I knew so much!” 

As he uttered this irrepressible exclama¬ 
tion, the Chemist pressed the pedal and sprang 
19 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


down from the glass platform. At the same 
moment the dynamo stopped, and the light 
that pervaded the room paled sensibly, fading 
as it seemed to drift through the atmosphere 
and penetrate the material confines of the 
room where it was lost to consciousness. 
The Chemist stood before Tom aglow with 
excitement. 

“ It is true !” he cried, seizing Tom’s hands 
with a kind of ecstasy. “ You feel it? You 
are conscious of a new life—a new power? 
You can then forgive me. I did not wait to 
gain your full consent. The force I have 
generated has been communicated to your 
body through the medium of atmosphere. I 
did not tell you what was about to happen, 
for I feared you would run away. Now,” he 
concluded, eagerly, “ you do not regret it— 
you can not! Are you not a new man—a 
better man ?” 

“ I do not know what you have done to 
me,” Tom replied, laughing out of pure joy in 
living, “ but I do feel uncommonly well.” 

“ Tell me,” said the Chemist, still fluttering 
with excitement, “ was there any particular 
branch of study in which you were especially 
weak ?” 

u Mathematics,” Tom answered, promptly. 

20 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


The Chemist went to a shelf and took down 
a book. 

“ Can you prove this ?” he asked, and then 
read hurriedly the following theorem : 

“ A cylinder is the limit of the inscribed and 
circumscribed prisms, the number of whose 
faces is indefinitely increased.” 

“ No!” was Tom’s quick response, but sud¬ 
denly his face seemed to change, and he drew 
a geometrical figure on a piece of paper that 
lay before him. “ Wait a minute!” he cried, 
presently, “ I think I can prove that.” 

Then, having defined his A, B, C lines in 
the figure, he began to give a simple, direct 
demonstration such as he had never in his life 
given before. 

The Chemist hugged him. 

“I knew it; I knew it!” he said, raptur¬ 
ously. “It is Kinos!” 

Tom seized the hand of his benefactor and 
pressed it. 

“You have emancipated the human race,” 
he said, fervently. “ When you spoke before, 
I could not comprehend you. Forgive me ! 
I thought you were crazy. But now your 
words have a new meaning. I think I can 
grasp the significance of your glorious discov¬ 
ery, and certainly I feel the benefit of the re- 


/ 

X 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 

fresh merit you have given me. Physically I 
feel at this moment better than I ever felt be¬ 
fore in my life, and mentally—I cannot tell you 
what a change has come over me. All my life 
my brain has been full of cobwebs. Only the 
half-light of day has shone in its chambers. 
I am conscious that I have been what is called 
a stupid man, just as I know to-day that I 
am a man with more than average intellect.” 

The Chemist looked at him with emotion 
so profound that it gradually grew overpower¬ 
ing. He dropped into a chair, and leaning his 
head upon his hands burst into tears. 

Tom walked to the window. He could un¬ 
derstand such feeling in a man who had, so to 
speak, just created a mind. 

“ You must pardon me,” said the Chemist, 
in an agitated tone, “ I have worked so long 
upon this process, I have thought so much— 
it has been the fondest dream of my life— 
that now, when I see it realized, the very joy 
of it overwhelms me.” 

“ I understand,” said Tom, gently, “ I—I 
feel like crying myself.” 

When their emotional equilibrium was re¬ 
stored the Chemist went on to say that a com¬ 
plete establishment of genius might or might 
not be possible in Tom’s case. 

22 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ There are limitations in every brain,” he 
continued, “ though they are far, far from being 
as narrow as our ignorance presumed. Every 
brain can be made clever; only special brains 
will conserve the forms of Kinos necessary to 
produce genius. What your extreme capacity 
is can only be ascertained after a series of ex¬ 
periments. You must come again.” 

“ I certainly will,” Tom replied. 

“ And, for the present, I must beg of you 
to be silent concerning this discovery. Event¬ 
ually I shall publish it to the world, but I 
must have proofs to present. You shall be a 
living witness to the great truth.” 

Tom assented, and it was arranged that he 
should come back the next day. On his way 
home he remembered that the business part 
of the negotiation had been quite forgotten; 
but the idea of asking for compensation for 
his services to the Chemist appeared to him so 
monstrous that he dismissed it as unworthy 
of him. 

On his way home Tom passed the Univer¬ 
sity. The medical students were hurrying 
into the lecture hall, where the physiology 
class met at four o’clock. Tom’s pulse quick¬ 
ened as the thought occurred to him that he 
might go in and listen to the lecture. Before 
23 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


he had deliberated he found himself on the 
bench of the back row, listening intently to 
the opening words of a lecture on cerebral 
localization. The professor had numerous 
charts of the brain, and he dwelt long upon 
the paths of nerve fibers, leading up finally to 
the geography of the brain centers, by which 
he sought to demonstrate the part of the con¬ 
volutions which controlled motion of the arms, 
legs, etc., also the center for vision, and the 
area of sound perception. 

“ Now, gentlemen,” he said, in conclusion, 
“ in order to test the degree to which I have 
succeeded in making this very difficult subject 
clear to you, I will ask a few general ques¬ 
tions to which any one present may volunteer 
a reply. Suppose you had a patient who came 
to you with loss of sensation—a persistent 
numbness—on the entire left side of the body 
below the waist, and that this patient had 
spasm of the leg muscles on the opposite side 
of the body. You would undoubtedly suspect 
some serious brain lesion. Where would you 
suppose it to be located ?” 

There was silence for a moment, then a 
single voice from the back seat answered the 
question. That voice was Tom’s. 

“ Well,” said the lecturer, somewhat quiz- 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


zically, “ I am glad there is at least one man 
who knows.” 

This trifling episode shaped Tom’s deci¬ 
sion. He resolved to study medicine, and 
wrote Dr. Graham an explanatory note that 
night, a note so manly and forcible that the. 
old man was much impressed. 

“ Well,” said the doctor, as he thought the 
matter over, “ it may be I was mistaken in 
Tom. He certainly has pluck, and that is a, 
great deal.” 

The next day Tom returned to the labora¬ 
tory. The Chemist received him cordially, 
almost affectionately. 

“ I like you, Mr. McArdle,” he said, kindly, 
as they sat once more opposite each other at 
the little table. “ It has pleased me greatly 
that you have so little of the mercenary spirit. 
But I have not forgotten what I owe you,” he 
added, with a smile. “lama single man, and 
I have no heirs-at-law, except two who are 
very remotely related to me. I have there¬ 
fore made my will in your favor. Here is a 
copy of it. I have not at present much to 
leave you that has any value; but I have 
made over to you the patent upon my process 
of making a new product to be known as 
Butyl-Carbide Illuminating Gas. A company 

25 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


is already organized and is about to begin its 
manufacture. As patentee I hold half the 
stock, and I have every reason to believe that 
its future value will be considerable.” 

Tom made his acknowledgments. Whether 
stock in a new company about to trade upon 
an untried patent was of much value or not, 
Tom felt that the Chemist owed him nothing, 
and the motive of this bequest seemed to him 
more than generous. 

On this occasion Tom consented to subject 
himself to a direct application of the mind- 
force, and allowed the Chemist to clasp the 
copper collar about his neck. 

“ I will take the pedal,” said the Chemist, 
41 and you can take my left hand. It will be 
necessary to use double the number of kinetic 
units, and I must have control of the force, for 
over-stimulation is dangerous.” 

Tom took his hand. The dynamo was 
running quietly. Again the room seemed to 
glow with that peculiar radiance which 
emanated from the bodies of the two men. 
Tom experienced a greater degree of exhila¬ 
ration than he had felt before. Every muscle 
and nerve in his body seemed to quiver under 
the sympathetic waves of Kinos that agitated 
every living cell. 


26 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ If we could see them,” said the Chemist, 
“ we should perceive the nuclei of all the cells 
in the body vibrating in unison with the 
kinetic waves. They float upon them.” 

As he spoke, light surged from his lips in 
radiant undulations. Tom was about to reply, 
for the language of his benefactor was no 
longer obscure to him, but at that moment it 
seemed to him a flash of lightning passed 
before his eyes. An intense light blinded 
him ; he saw only a dazzling glare all about 
him, and he heard the slight spitting sound 
of electric sparks. The hand of the Chemist 
clutched his with the desperate, painful grip 
of an electrified person who cannot release 
the object he holds. 

“ My God, McArdle !” he cried. “ Jump 
from the platform—break the wire ! The 
force is resolving itself!” 

Tom sprang forward, leaping blindly into 
the luminous space that environed him. 
With a wrench he disentangled his fingers from 
the Chemist’s hands, the wires attached to the 
copper collar were torn away, and Tom fell, 
he knew not how nor where, but it seemed to 
him that he sank through the earth into the 
fathomless realm of the universe beyond— 
down, down—till at length he came to a 
27 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


peaceful spot where silence reigned and 
oblivion awaited him. 

What really did happen was this: there 
was a break in the governor, and the power¬ 
ful, compound force kept in physical combi¬ 
nation only under special conditions was 
suddenly released and became resolved into 
its constituent parts. Tom reasoned this out 
for himself afterward. There was no one to 
tell him, for from the sudden liberation of so 
much electricity and heat the laboratory was 
instantly ablaze, and of the two men found 
senseless in the midst of that conflagration 
Tom was the only one to survive. 

As he lay on his pillow, with that terrible 
red ring burnt deep into his neck, and every 
vestige of hair on his head and face consumed 
to a charred bristle, a great sorrow filled his 
heart, even though Madelon Carruthers held 
his hand and he knew that her love for him 
had made itself manifest in the hour of his 
terrible suffering and imminent death. 

“ Do you think, dear,” Tom said, sadly, 
“ that all of the machinery was destroyed ?” 

“ Everything !” she replied. “ There was 
an explosion afterward, you know, when the 
fire reached the chemicals.” 

Tom sighed. 


28 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ Not a book, not a line,” he murmured. 
u What a terrible—what an irreparable loss !” 

“ But Tom, dear,” Madelon continued, 
cheerfully, “ Papa said I might tell you to-day. 
It is two months since it happened,—” 

“ So long!” 

“ And you are so much better ! Did you 
know, dear, that the Chemist had made his 
will the day before he was killed ?” 

“ Yes, I knew it,” said Tom, quietly. 

“ And Papa says that the stock he left you 
will make you a millionaire!” 

Tom listened in silence. His eyes were 
closed, and a tear trickled down his cheek. 

“ Madelon,” he said, in a low tone, “ the 
greatest man that ever lived was killed in that 
accident.” 

She laid her cheek against his, and whis¬ 
pered softly, 

“ The best man in the world was saved for 

^ > > 
me. 

When Tom got better he gave up the idea 
of studying medicine. The first drive he took 
was out to the cemetery where they had made 
a grave for the Chemist. Tom laid upon it a 
laurel wreath. Madelon stood beside him, 
tender and sympathetic, though she did not 
comprehend his feelings. 

29 


THE GENIUS MAKER. 


“ I have decided to give my life to the study 
of chemistry and physics,” Tom said, laying 
his hand on the little mound that covered the 
dead genius maker. “ I shall work while my 
strength lasts, to re-discover the secret which 
is buried in this grave.” 

Since that time, Tom’s name has become a 
household word in science. He is engaged 
now in the Berlin Laboratory in original re¬ 
search, and great men have spoken enthusias¬ 
tically of his work and ability. When Dr. 
Graham read a recent sketch of “ the eminent 
American chemist, Thomas McArdle,” he 
blushed for his own stupidity. 

“To think,” he ejaculated, “ that I should 
ever have told him that he hadn’t enough 
brains to study medicine !” 

Madelon is puffed up with pride in her hus¬ 
band’s success. Tom has never told her how 
he came by his genius,—not that he seeks to 
conceal the truth, but for fear the story would 
be too hard a strain upon her faith in his 
veracity. If the time ever comes when he 
shall have succeeded in creating the mind- 
force now lost to human knowledge, he will 
pay his tribute to the poor, forgotten Chemist 
who endowed him with genius, and will publish 
to the world the glorious secret of Kinos. 

30 




Ann Preston. 








THE DOMESTIC AND PROFESS¬ 
IONAL LIFE OF ANN 
PRESTON. 


In the late forties, when years were young, 
joys plenty, time abundant, and the higher 
education of woman in its primary budding, we 
lived in the country. Jane, my foster-mother, 
was one of those housekeepers who believe in 
good bread and butter, fried chicken, cran¬ 
berry tarts, white kitchen floors, spotless linen, 
dustless carpets, fine china, cut-glass ware, 
solid silver, and an open countenance. Her 
table wares were so washed and polished that 
they often reflected her own trim form as she 
spread the table for the many relatives and 
friends entertained at her father’s house. At 
this time I was the only child of the family, 
and hence most of my amusements were 
closely concerned with those of its adult mem¬ 
bers. Among our many visitors was a young 
woman who afterward became eminent in 
medicine. She was a neighbor’s daughter and 

31 



ANN PRESTON. 


a boon companion of my foster-mother. Her 
visits were always made on stated days, how¬ 
ever, when the bread was freshly baked and the 
butter churned just long enough to harden. 

In the summer time, about eleven o’clock 
in the forenoon, there would appear at the far 
end of the long lane the approaching form of 
a large horse, and one could see that a small 
woman sat upon his back. Oh, she was very 
small, and the animal, carrying her with the 
most gentle care, seemed to realize how frail 
she was, and yet he must have felt how firmly 
she held the bridle. In the winter season this 
small visitor came in a sleigh with one of 
her brothers. It was not then admissible 
for women to go sleighing alone. 

Across the fields and brambles, about half 
an hour’s run for a little girl, lived Farmer 
Preston. Amos the neighbors called him. 
Amos Preston was a recommended minister 
in the Society of Friends, but he stood for 
more than a minister. He bore a strong testi¬ 
mony against all forms of vice and injustice. 
He was a most neighborly neighbor, the 
kindest of husbands and most gentle of 
fathers. His house was the headquarters for 
the leading spirits of the then unpopular re¬ 
forms of the day, a place where Garrison, 
32 


ANN PRESTON. 


Phillips, the Motts, Burleighs, and Grews 
found a meeting-place. It was, in short, a 
home of social elegance, where many con¬ 
genial people often gathered for mutual im¬ 
provement and were made welcome by the 
queenly wife and mother, the frail but intel¬ 
lectual Margaret. 

Amos and Margaret were the parents of 
Ann Preston, an only surviving daughter 
among six sons; and it was in this home that 
the young girl’s domestic and intellectual in¬ 
stincts were thoroughly trained. 

Quick of discernment and gentle in dispo¬ 
sition, she grew useful both in the home and 
community, and often led where she assumed 
only to follow. She understood the necessity 
of a well provided table and a neatly kept 
house, and she was as enthusiastic over good 
bread and butter as was her friend Jane 
at our house. It is told of Ann that she had 
been known to turn griddle cakes with one 
hand, hold her book in the other, and mean¬ 
while entertain some distinguished guest for 
whom she was preparing breakfast. The 
story is most likely true, since the beautiful 
simplicity, the freedom, and the utility of her 
mind left untrammeled the activity of her 
every-day life. 


33 


ANN PRESTON. 


But with all the pleasure and cheer that 
surrounded her, there was a void. Her aspir¬ 
ing spirit was unsettled and struggled against 
its confines. She panted for broader altitudes 
on which to spend a latent energy, and prayed 
to God to reveal Himself more fully to her 
understanding and to teach her how to better 
perfect her womanhood and become a more 
worthy handmaiden in His vineyard. She 
longed to draw nearer to the heart of nature 
and convert its hidden mysteries into an open 
book to her inquiring mind. 

Marriage had not come to her; a frail con¬ 
stitution and the delicate health of her mother 
caused her to pause on its threshold. But 
Time, the monarch of all temporal things, 
would some day close the parental doors. 
Could she not enter some field of usefulness 
and still be a stay to the declining years of 
both her parents ? Looking into the avenues 
then open to women, she taught the neighbor¬ 
ing school for a time, wrote a few poems, and 
published a little book of rhymes for children, 
whose moral lessons and illustrations of a 
simple trust in truth, love, and mercy still linger 
in the minds of many of us as sweet memories 
of the past. “ Cousin Ann’s Stories ” was the 
first book some of us ever owned. 


34 


ANN PRESTON. 


It was this little woman who so often ap¬ 
peared on the big horse, or sat cuddled in 
buffalo robes clinging to the side of her 
brother as the merry sound of bells rang out 
the news that we were going to have callers. 
It was for her the viands had been spread at 
our house on stated days. I had been sent to 
school to Ann, and had learned to love her 
gentle manner. Gentleness wins children, 
especially orphans. It was she who so often 
reminded the larger girls of the class of their 
responsibility as the women of a rising gene¬ 
ration, but as a child I was more interested in 
the coming of the big horse and in my dear 
teacher’s conversation at the dinner-table. 
The evening stroll among the blooming 
tulips and hyacinths, or, later in the season, 
the dahlias and asters, the walk under the wil¬ 
lows to the mill where we went to be weighed, 
to watch the great water-wheels as the 
ponderous logs were sawed into slabs, or to 
see the sifting of the pure white flour as it 
came gently down from the bolting shaft; 
and, later still, the long winter evenings with 
nuts and apples, the reciting of some new 
poem or tragic rehearsal of some unforgotten 
story, as our friends lingered to chat and to 
jest,—sweet memories all! 

35 


ANN PRESTON. 


One day I heard Ann say to Jane that she 
was “ going to study medicine, for she was 
fully persuaded that women could make just 
as good doctors as men. They were just as 
clever, they understood each other and chil¬ 
dren better than men possibly could, and were 
quite as patient and painstaking.” 

I do not think my foster-mother slept much 
that night, for she kept saying, “ How can 
Ann think of such a thing ? How can she 
leave her beautiful home, the great lawn with 
its flowers and trees, her loving parents, her 
many friends, and the good bread and butter 
of which she is so fond ? How can she go 
into some pent-up city place to study medi¬ 
cine? And when she comes back she will 
be so changed, so different from the rest of 
us ! And how we shall miss her ! Little as she 
is, she fills a large place in our circle.” And 
I, in my childish regret, thought how I should 
miss the pleasure of seeing her and the big 
horse coming down the long lane! 

Soon the news reached the meeting-house. 
Ann Preston was going to study medicine. 
The West Grove people were to have a 
woman doctor among them. The more con¬ 
servative Friends said it would never do ; they 
must persuade the dear little member to con- 
36 


ANN PRESTON. 


tinue teaching school, if she really wanted to 
do some special work,—it would be in so 
much better keeping with the Society of 
Friends. But the intrepid little Ann had her 
mind made up long before the Friendly peo¬ 
ple had had time to recover from their sur¬ 
prise. Then arose a perplexing question. 
Where could she obtain a medical education ? 
Colleges for men did not admit women. No \ 
But Ann had been reading the papers and 
getting letters from Philadelphia. She knew 
that a woman’s medical college was about to 
be established in that city, and it was her 
ambition to be there among the builders. 
But still another obstacle. Ann had very 
weak eyes ; how was she to get through all 
the reading she would have to do ? She soon 
settled that question also. Her mother had, 
some years previous, taken a little colored 
girl to raise, and Ann had seen to it that 
Louisa had been taught to read, and to read 
well. “ In winter,” thought Ann, “ I can 
listen to the lectures, and in summer Louisa 
can read the ponderous books to me in the 
long afternoons, after the dishes are washed 
and the kitchen floors are mopped.” This 
plan was carried out. That autumn she went 
to Philadelphia and entered the new college 
37 


ANN PRESTON. 


of which Dr. Edwin Fussel had been elected 
Dean. The next spring she returned, looking 
just the same as she had six months before. 
Away again in the winters and back in the 
summers, until finally it was Dr. Ann Preston 
instead of simply Ann. 

But what had been gained? Time and 
money lost! 

What better was this little mite of a woman 
than before? Her conversation was much 
the same. It was the same familiar “ How 
does thee do ? I am glad to see thee !” She 
was as generous as ever in her social life, still 
rode the big horse, admired the clear crystal 
and dainty china with as much ardor, and ate 
good bread and butter with as much relish as 
of yore. She sat as still in the little meeting¬ 
house and listened as attentively to her father’s 
sermons as when she was a child. But these 
were only outward manifestations; there was 
a great change in her inner life. Much had 
been gained and her home folks felt this as 
sensibly as she did. The former Ann was 
there with very much added to her person¬ 
ality. She had wedded science and had 
brought the bridegroom home to dwell with 
her. The new zest of her life gave greater 
charms to a well-ordered house. To her 
38 


ANN PRESTON. 


father and mother she was more of a daughter. 
Parental affection and brotherly love meant 
more to her than it had ever meant before. 
The book of nature was more widely opened 
to her understanding, and God had truly re¬ 
vealed Himself more fully to her thirsting 
spirit. In the close study of anatomy and 
physiology she had read lessons never to be 
forgotten. The necessary concentration of 
mind during this studious life had strength¬ 
ened her self-possession and she felt herself to 
be more independent of the frailities of woman 
than ever before. 

The change felt in the home was soon ap¬ 
preciated throughout the neighborhood. 
From her childhood up Ann Preston had 
been regarded as the embodiment of love and 
sympathy for her neighbors and friends. She 
was now mingling with her former associates 
as a doctor of medicine, a companion of sci¬ 
ence, a book-worm feeding upon hidden mys¬ 
teries of creative forces. Slowly but surely 
she was making an impression; not as a 
stranger, but as a member of one of the oldest 
and most respected families of the county,— 
people who had grown up with the settlement 
of the country, who had helped maintain the 
wealth of its independent living, had cultivated 
39 


ANN PRESTON. 


its hills and valleys, beautified its gardens and 
lawns, encouraged its schools, supported a 
code of morals, and vindicated its religion. 
Herein the doctor had a strong foothold. 

Very soon young mothers were at her side 
asking questions about the duties of maternity; 
and maidens wanted more light on the sub¬ 
jects of biology, physiology, chemistry, and 
physics. Women came long distances for 
knowledge which had always been denied 
them because it was deemed improper and 
immodest for a woman to know much about 
herself or the laws of physical life. 

Finally some one said, “ Let us gather in 
our parlors, our school-rooms, our lecture 
halls, and have these things taught us. Let 
us have this valuable knowledge systematized, 
now that we have a leader. Let us climb this 
ladder to its top.” Crowded rooms and eager 
audiences soon resulted from this suggestion. 
Men as well as women came to listen and to 
learn. There were lessons for the well and 
for the sick, for parents, children, housekeep¬ 
ers, for kitchens and for nurseries. She taught 
us how to properly clothe the body and beau¬ 
tify the character ; no better teacher, no more 
impressive talker, ever stirred the thoughts of 
a community. A change came to the neigh- 
40 


ANN PRESTON. 


borhood. A seed of physiological light was 
sown where growth still perpetuates the 
memory of the sower; and many recall her 
healing power, for she attended many suffering 
ones both in country and town. 

Dr. Preston’s Alma Mater soon found her 
out, appointing her to its chair of Physiology, 
also electing her one of its Board of Man¬ 
agers, and thus Philadelphia’s gain became 
Chester County’s loss. She was next heard 
from as a persistent co-worker for the erection 
of a Woman’s Hospital, which to-day owes 
much of its prosperity to her benign influence. 
For some years after the hospital was estab¬ 
lished it sheltered students attending the col¬ 
lege, for the two institutions then shared the 
same building. During the time that I was en¬ 
joying this privilege, Dr. Preston one day called 
at my room to inquire if I thought the pro¬ 
vision for our table was ample, and, above all, 
did we have good bread and butter? Claim¬ 
ing as she did that both students and patients 
should have wholesome food and that in abun¬ 
dance, and as a manager living some distance 
from the institution, she wanted to be certain 
that the steward was doing his duty. Thus her 
life was occupied for the comfort and advance¬ 
ment of others. Success and prosperity fol- 
41 


ANN PRESTON. 


lowed her effort. She did not enjoy the eclat of 
a linguist, nor the fame of a specialist, but rather 
the reward of a sympathetic, common-sense 
woman who labored that others might reap. She 
finally became Dean of that institution which 
to-day stands foremost among the best medical 
colleges in the world, and she bequeathed to it 
a perpetual scholarship for relatives or friends 
who might desire a medical education in that 
institution. The little Quaker face has been 
carved in marble relief for its library. All 
honor to the donor of so fitting a gift! But a 
great, living statue far more precious than 
marble or alabaster has been carved upon the 
characters of hundreds of men and women 
whom she led to greater heights and nobler 
deeds by the example of her domestic as well 
as her professional living. 

She died in 1872, and was buried in the 
graveyard of the Friends’ Meeting at West 
Grove, where she still retained her birthright 
membership. 

In 1895 my foster-mother died, and as I 
stood beside her open grave I read on a small 
tombstone close beside the name Ann Pres¬ 
ton. In life their friendship had been true; 
in death they lie side by side. 


42 




































































A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


The three friends, who were known in col¬ 
lege as the Hatter, the March Hare, and the 
Dormouse, resented the suggestion that there 
was anything particularly fitting in the names 
by which they were universally called. The 
March Hare, a Junior, whose propositions in 
students’ association meetings had won her 
the name, was wont to grow quite sarcastic 
over the literalness of those dense Seniors 
who failed to appreciate the subtlety of her 
remarks, and would, when allowed, wax 
eloquent over the evils of allowing one’s im¬ 
aginative faculty to atrophy. 

Then the Hatter, a Senior, taking up 
weapons in defense of her class, would become 
verbose in her arguments to prove the value 
of exactness in detail. There were moments 
when each girl wondered why she was so 
fond of the other; and it was at such crises 
that the Dormouse would slip in, and, in her 
tactful way, connect the most diverging points 
43 



A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


of their differences of opinion by a line of 
sophistry that proved they really agreed and 
did not know it. She was as necessary to that 
friendship as the third side to a triangle. It 
was certainly due to the intervention of her 
timely offices that the friendship survived 
the afternoon when the three met in the 
March Hare’s sitting-room to write a story 
for the college book. To be sure, they all had 
lectures at five, and not one of them had 
ever written a story before, but it would be so 
easy to dash off, within an hour, a few sug¬ 
gestive anecdotes and connect them by a little 
romance ! But, alas ! the illuminated face of 
the college clock opposite showed it was 
already five, and the quiet light that suddenly 
flooded the room from the electric standards 
across the way reminded them that the short 
winter twilight was darkening into night—and 
yet the story refused to develop. It was not 
that there was dearth of ideas, the Hatter, 
who was scribe, carefully explained. The 
March Hare, yawning, suggested forced feed¬ 
ing and an incubator, but the Hatter frowned 
upon her and said that similar frivolous sug¬ 
gestions had repeatedly distracted attention 
from the serious matter in hand and were them¬ 
selves responsible for the story’s slow growth. 

44 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


The Dormouse considered this an oppor¬ 
tune moment to suggest tea, and in response 
to an assenting nod from the hostess began 
active preparations. Matches were finally 
found in a little blue china basket that hung 
under the Welsbach light. The March Hare 
was heard to complain that no one ever 
thought of looking for things in their proper 
places in her rooms, just because she had 
once poured the mucilage into the ink-well 
when she had wanted an empty bottle in a 
hurry. 

It was a very attractive room that the more 
practical gas now lighted up, and character¬ 
istic, too, of its erratic owner,—dainty and un¬ 
expected. The skeleton in one corner, which 
■nothing but respect to an old tradition had 
prevented her putting in the closet, was coyly 
draped in a bright yellow Mexican riboza; a 
lovely copy of the Morgenrot, from the last 
Dresden Spring Exhibition, hung over the 
mantel; a ponderous Gould’s Dictionary im¬ 
perilled the freshness of the muslin curtains 
which it propped back ; and in one corner— 
her shrine, she called it—a pot of carnations 
stood under pictures of her patron saints, 
Jeanne d’Arc and Doubting Thomas. 

The few who were allowed a glimpse of 
45 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


the softer side of this girl’s character under¬ 
stood her love for that corner, with fresh, 
open outlook over the playgrounds of the 
college opposite to the spires and steeples 
that marked the great city lying beyond; she 
had found it restful in the “ homesick hour ” 
to watch the narrow strips of lovely sunset 
skies wedged in between the tall buildings, 
and the gold cross on a distant spire that 
marked the flickering of the last breath of the 
dying day. 

In the harmonious silence that followed tea 
the scribe again dipped her pen in ink that, 
alas, was not to perpetuate weighty words, 
for it dried as she read from the manuscript 
before her. 

“ A group of girls sat around the register 
in the college hall.” 

“Which register, names or heat?” muttered 
the March Hare. 

“Who is literal now, I should like to ask?” 
said the Dormouse. 

“Try the second beginning, Maud,” and the 
Hatter read from another sheet: 

“ In a corner of the flower-laden room, to 
and fro the hammock swung, its occupant all 
unconscious of the notes that had slipped 
from her portfolio and lay scattered like huge 
46 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


snowflakes over the floor, and of the damage 
that the swaying net was doing to a group of 
palms behind it.” 

“ Great Delft jars full of La France roses 
stood around! Yes, Maud, you might as 
well make the room beautiful, if it is to be 
imaginary. You know we girls do not live 
in such style!” interrupted the Dormouse. 

“ Ah, but you know fiction is sometimes 
stranger than truth, and I really did have such 
a room in mind.” 

“ Whose?” asked the Dormouse, who was in 
her Freshman year. 

“ That of a girl named Jacqueline Evans, 
who entered when I did. She was perfectly 
fascinating, beautiful, bright, and unselfish. 
We imposed on her time most inconsiderately, 
it was so heavenly just to be near that sym¬ 
pathetic soul.” 

“ Did she die ?” asked the Dormouse. 

“ Oh, no ! But after the May examinations 
she decided that she didn’t like medicine, and 
so she returned to the gayer world that she 
had left on an impulse. I saw her at a matinee 
last week; I was up-stairs on a rush ticket, 
she with a box party and half hidden behind 
a huge bunch of violets. There had been an 
interesting romance with a sad ending in her 
47 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


life. She once told me about it. No, I didn’t 
mean to work that into the story; it was the 
feminine charm that invaded every corner of 
her lovely room that I thought might refute 
some of the charges against us.” 

“ Don’t try to do that,” said the March Hare, 
“ it’s an idea that people are too fond of to 
abandon easily, and its refuting would leave 
such gaps in the Woman’s Page of the weekly 
paper! For what subject could prizes for 
the best answers then be given ? Even my 
brother says that since I’ve begun study¬ 
ing things scientific the entire household has 
changed tone. Even the cat has lost her 
domesticity; has stopped catching mice and 
tries only for birds.” 

The Dormouse looked thoughtful as she 
continued, “ It is strange how much prejudice 
still remains concerning the deteriorating 
effect of our work upon our womanliness. I 
am afraid that the personal effort to overcome 
some of the prejudice in my own family has 
added greatly to my vanity, for I have never 
dwelt so much upon the advantages of per¬ 
sonal attractiveness as I have this winter. And 
I never owned such giddy head-gear as the 
Leghorn I hid under red roses the day I an¬ 
nounced to the astonished world my intention 
48 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


of studying medicine, just to show that the 
concomitant idea was not bloomers or a billy¬ 
cock hat. But I’ve never been able to over¬ 
come the effect of one miserable incident that 
happened in connection with Sidney Brooke. 
He had evinced so much sympathy for my 
former schemes that I took its continuance 
for granted in this work. He sat patiently 
through six symphony concerts last winter 
when I was studying Bach’s preludes, and he 
refrained from calling me a faddist when I 
joined the Koran Commentator Class; but 
medicine! At first he occasionally came up 
to see me rather tentatively, and I talked so 
much about the femininity of our girls that he 
finally got the idea that we did little else at 
college than embroider pink roses and sing 
glees! But one afternoon he called for me 
at college, as bad luck would have it, just as 
the hall was full of girls in bloomers. They 
were on their way to the gym. class, but he 
couldn’t know that. Then I appeared with a 
handful of scalpels which belonged to different 
girls, and which I was taking to have sharp¬ 
ened. I shall never forget that man’s face. 
It had a don’t-try-to-explain expression that 
nearly made me laugh ; and I am sure I hea*rd 
him mutter, ‘ What some men have escaped ! 

49 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


I never realized before what medicine had 
done for us !’ We talked of every other sub¬ 
ject as we walked home—Mme. Melba and the 
Venezuela question—and I have not seen him 
since.” 

Maud, who had been gazing dreamily into 
the mist that was settling down over the gray 
buildings opposite, said, 

“ I often wonder what the different motives 
were that induced many of the girls to take 
up this work. Take our own class, for in¬ 
stance. Can you imagine a more motley 
collection of women than those who entered 
the Freshman Class three years ago ? Of all 
ages, sizes, and social conditions—Medes, 
Elamites, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia. 
And what a weeding out there has been! 
Modesty alone forbids my adding ‘ the sur¬ 
vival of the fittest ’! Well, the woman who 
persists is the one who knew from the begin¬ 
ning that it was a fact, not a fad. And we 
learn to average up our differences, our likes, 
and our dislikes, in our struggle toward a 
common goal. Oh, it has not been all sun¬ 
shine and roses ! Sometimes I wonder whether 
I ever would have undertaken it, had I fully 
realized all the hardnesses. And each time 
that I think it over I am convinced afresh that 
5o 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


I would. Everything else in life that I could 
have done shrinks into such insignificance,— 
seems so little worth the doing!” 

The three were silent for a moment, and 
then the March Hare gave a little laugh. 

“ Maud, shall you ever forget your first 
Anatomy quiz ? I remember I was so fright¬ 
ened that I couldn’t think where the inferior 
maxilla was.” 

“ Fine beginning that for a girl who took 
last year’s surgery prize. How that skeleton 
did use to grit his teeth at the liberties we 
took with his bones! He looked as if he 
were registering a mental vow to paste on 
labels before the next Freshman Class got at 
him!” 

“And have you forgotten Laura Kennedy’s 
bonnet? You know she had had fever, and 
her hair was in tight little curls all over her 
head. It was becoming, but she looked about 
fifteen. Well, she remembered that ‘ age lends 
graces,’ so she tried to conceal her youth under 
a Salvation Army bonnet, with a switch sewed 
in the back of it, when she went to clinics. 
And one day she slipped, and the bonnet fell 
off. I shall never forget her confusion, nor 
how pretty she looked, when a U. of P. stu¬ 
dent picked it up and handed it back, with a 
5i 


A MAIDEN EFFORT. 


courteous bow, to his clinical sister, nor how 
she fled to the nearest street car!” 

“ Nor the day when you thought that the 
frogs in the physiological laboratory looked 
thirsty, and watered them to such an ex¬ 
tent that they had to stand on tip-toe all 
night to keep their noses out of water ! And 
the Doctor was so patient, and only looked 
amused when she found the beasties too ex¬ 
hausted to respond to stimuli. I remember 
we had a lecture on the pendulum-myograph 
that day instead of experiments.” 

“ Nor the day,”— 

The Dormouse sprang up. 

“ Girls, a truce to reminiscences; it’s past 
six, and I am hungry!” and then, as they 
were donning hats and gloves to go to dinner, 
she added, slyly, “ And shall we meet again 
this evening to write that story ?” 


52 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 

A SKETCH FROM HOSPITAL LIFE. 


“ I thought a child was given to sanctify 
A woman—set her in the sight of all 
The clear-eyed heavens, a chosen minister 
To do their business and lead spirits up 
The difficult blue heights. 
****** 

My sister! let the night be ne’er so dark, 

The moon is surely somewhere in the sky: 

So surely is your whiteness to be found 
Through all dark facts.” 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

On a winter morning many years ago, I 
made my professional rounds through the 
Maternity wards of a large hospital with 
which I was connected. Pausing for a moment 
at the bedside of a patient, a mere child but 
eighteen years of age, whose baby was three 
or four days old, I noticed that her eyes were 
red with weeping. She looked piteously at 
me and then dropped her eyelids, as though 
shrinking from the thought of any question- 
53 



MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


ing. After making the usual inquiries of the 
nurse as to her condition, I gave such direc¬ 
tions for her care as seemed demanded and 
passed on. Her sad face haunted me, how¬ 
ever, and after completing my rounds I went 
back to her alone, to learn, if possible, the 
cause of her distress. As soon as she saw 
me, she stretched out both her hands and 
grasped mine, saying, 

“ Oh, doctor, I’m so glad you are alone. 
I want to ask you to forgive me.” 

“ Forgive you for what, my child ?” said I. 

“ I told you before I came here,” said she, 
sobbing, “ that I was married. I wanted to be 
taken care of in a respectable place. I wanted 
so much to be here, and I knew I could not 
come if it were known that I was not married, 
so I told you a story. I have been so ashamed 
to look at you since, and to accept the kind¬ 
nesses that you have shown me. You will 
forgive me, doctor, will you not? I would 
not have done it if I had not been in so much 
trouble.” 

“Tell me about your trouble, my child,” 
and gently I led her on until the story was 
told,—the old, sad tale of an orphaned girl, 
defenseless, destitute, hungering for love and 
the sweetness of home-life, trusting, in the 
54 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


utter abandonment of girlish devotion, the 
promises of her lover, and finding herself at 
last betrayed and forsaken. The fragile ap¬ 
pearance of the little mother betokened a 
delicacy of constitution which totally unfitted 
her for grappling with the difficulties of life, 
much less for bearing the burden of that other 
innocent, helpless life now so dependent upon 
her. 

I asked her for the name of her betrayer, 
but she loyally refused to give it. 

u It would do no good, doctor,” said she. 
“ He says he cannot marry me, and I do not 
wish to harm him. I must bear my trouble 
alone.” 

Without urging her further, I tried to soothe 
her by the assurance that she should not lack 
friends. 

Several days passed. With much appre¬ 
hension I noticed the form of my little patient 
wasting, her face growing pinched and pale, 
her eyes sunken and more mournful. Grief 
was proving too great a burden. 

At last, one morning I received a note from 
a “ friend ” of my patient. It was signed by 
a woman’s name. The writer inquired for the 
well-being of the mother, and asked the prob¬ 
able date of her discharge. I answered by 
55 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


requesting that the writer of the letter come 
and see me, saying that I felt very anxious 
about the condition of my little patient. 

The following day I was not altogether sur¬ 
prised to have a gentleman announced as a 
visitor who wished to make inquiry for the 
little Mater Dolorosa. A single glance was 
sufficient to assure me that the handsome 
features of the young man before me were 
the exact counterpart of the baby face pil¬ 
lowed upon the breast of the child-mother. I 
had no question in my mind that I saw before 
me the father of the child. 

Politely the young man rose to greet me as 
I entered the room. His well-bred air, his 
neat appearance, his courteous manner, 
showed him to belong to the higher ranks of 
society. He told me he had come, in response 
to my letter, to make inquiry concerning the 
little Magdalen, as her friend could not come. 
He spoke of the patient as if she were a 
stranger to himself, but said he felt an interest 
in her for his friend’s sake. I concealed my 
suspicion of the probable relation existing 
between my visitor and my patient, and spoke 
of my great anxiety both for her physical and 
her mental condition. With all the eloquence 
and pathos at my command I dwelt upon the 
56 



MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


wrongs she had suffered. I pictured the help¬ 
lessness of the child-mother and her baby 
thus thrust upon the world as outcasts to 
battle with an adverse fate. I asked him who 
should bear the greater share of suffering for 
this sin, the weak, loving woman, who believed 
and trusted too much only to find herself 
betrayed, or the strong man whom nature had 
fitted for struggle and conquest ? I spoke of 
the passionate devotion which still led the 
wronged child to shield her lover from dis¬ 
grace, and I begged him, if he knew the man, 
to plead with him to redress, as far as possi¬ 
ble, the wrong he had done, in order to give 
both her and their innocent babe the protection 
of his name. My fervor seemed to touch a 
chord in the better nature of my listener. His 
face grew grave and very sorrowful. He 
looked at me earnestly, but shook his head 
and told me that his friend could not do what 
I asked. Although an honorable man, he 
was in a very different social position from the 
girl. He knew his friend would try to do 
what he could for mother and child, but it 
would simply blight his life to form any mes¬ 
alliance. 

“Ah!” I said, “ but do you not remember 
that it is either his life or the woman’s that 
57 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


will have to be blighted, and which is better 
able to bear the blight ? Which is better able 
to face the cold and cruel world ? Should the 
weak be made to bear the burdens of the 
strong ?” 

Waiving answer to my question, he urged 
the possibility of some other man than his 
friend being the father of the child, the woman 
probably being a woman of the town. 

“ No,” said I, “ I do not believe that to be 
true. This little woman could not, in her pres¬ 
ent state of mental anguish, practice decep¬ 
tion. She has repeatedly told me that she 
has loved and still loves but one man. Re¬ 
ligiously has she guarded his secret, striving 
to save his name from dishonor, although she 
knows that her own honor is probably forever 
lost. Nature has, however, revealed the 
secret in the baby’s face, which is a miniature 
of its father’s. I have seen the man who is 
the father of the child.” 

A sudden flush overspread the handsome 
features of the young man. He glanced un¬ 
easily at me, and then drew himself up 
haughtily. 

“You address me, madam,” said he, “as 
if you considered me to be the father of the 
child! Let me tell you, you are very much 
58 


MATER DOLOROSA-MATER FELIX. 


mistaken. I am simply deputed by my friend 
to make inquiry for the woman.” 

“ My friend,” said I, “ you are a young man ; 
do not add falsehood to the evil you have 
already done. There can be little doubt in 
the mind of any one who has seen the child 
and yourself as to the relationship between 
you. Think earnestly over what I have said 
to you, and let that which is most manly, and 
hence most divine, come forward. Do not 
consider what the world will say, but rather 
what you will wish, at the judgment bar of 
God, that you had done. You will then have 
no difficulty in deciding what your duty may 
be toward mother and child. If you are an 
unmarried man, you can certainly offer your¬ 
self to no other woman, for you are bound to 
this one. If you have wronged a wife as well 
as this confiding child by a double sin, you 
must make such reparation as is in your power 
to both.” 

Tears gathered in his large, dark eyes. 
His countenance showed him to be deeply 
moved. 

“ I have no wife,” he exclaimed, “but my 
mother—my poor, old mother—her heart will 
be broken. She knows nothing of this. How 
can I marry the girl ?” 

59 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


“ Go to your mother,” I replied, “ and tell 
her all I have told you. Send her to see me 
and the child-mother with her baby. You 
will need courage, but you can do this!” 

“ You do not know what you are asking,’* 
he said. “ My mother is very proud. I can 
not promise, but I will think of what you have 
said.” 

“ I thank you,” I responded, “ for promising 
me this, for I believe you will have strength 
given you to do right.” 

We shook hands, and he took his leave. 

The next morning a gray-haired lady, well- 
dressed and of aristocratic bearing, came to 
the hospital inquiring for me, and announcing 
herself as the mother of Mr. Blank, whom I 
had seen the previous day. She was much 
agitated as she told me of her son’s confes¬ 
sion, but she could not agree with me that her 
son should marry this girl. He owed a duty, 
she acknowledged, to the woman and child, 
which she, his own old mother, would help him 
to perform; but marriage was not to be thought 
of, it was simply social suicide. Patiently I 
went step by step over the same arguments I 
had presented to her son. I asked her to 
consider whether she would argue as she did 
if the girl were her daughter instead of the 
60 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


young man being her son. I told her of the 
girl’s helplessness, her delicate, pathetic face, 
her refined and sensitive nature, her impres¬ 
sionable age, and of how easy it would be for 
mother and son to mould her into a lovely, 
happy wife and mother. I spoke of the moral 
victory she might help her son to gain. 

She would not see the mother and child, 
and went away apparently unconvinced. The 
words Cui bono ? came to my lips. I seemed 
powerless to save the girl ! 

A few days later I received a note from the 
young man, asking me to appoint a time when 
he might see my patient. I set an hour and 
told my little woman of her expected visitor. 
In preparation for his coming we got up as 
dainty a toilet as hospital resources could 
supply, and some pretty laces from my own 
wardrobe supplemented the meagre outfit. A 
pale pink wrapper of soft woolen material 
clung about her in graceful folds. Her beau¬ 
tiful hair clustered in rings of gold around her 
forehead and neck. A flush of excitement 
gave the necessary touch of color to her pale, 
interesting face. Her eyes of heaven’s own 
blue needed no interpreter to tell the pathetic 
story of their owner. The baby, too, was be¬ 
comingly dressed in white,—an emblem of its 
61 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


purity. The sturdy child, with his dark head 
resting against his mother’s breast, made a 
striking contrast to her fragile beauty. 

When the young man arrived, I escorted 
mother and child to the reception room. 
Fearing the result to the baby, should the 
mother be overcome by emotion, I took the 
child from her as we reached the door. It 
was well I did so, for the moment the door 
was opened and she saw the man she loved, 
she threw her arms around his neck and burst 
into tears. 

“Oh! Walter, Walter,” she cried; “see 
what trouble I have brought upon you!” 

“ No, my child,” said I, as I put the baby 
in its father’s arms, “ this dear little baby is 
not a trouble, but rather the bond which must 
unite you !” 

The strong man’s tears came fast and 
mingled with hers. The baby, realizing that 
there was some disturbance in its environ¬ 
ment, raised its own voice in lamentation, and 
thus I left them for a time—father, mother, 
and child—weeping. 

When I returned, for I did not wish to pro¬ 
long the interview beyond my patient’s 
strength, I found the little family ensconced 
upon the sofa and in calmer mood. My 
62 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


patient’s head rested contentedly upon the 
young man’s shoulder, and he drew her to 
him. The baby lay in happy slumber on his 
knees, one chubby fist closed firmly around 
the father’s finger. It was not difficult to see 
that the young man’s deepest feelings had 
been stirred. Fondly he kissed both mother 
and child before they left the room, and 
promised soon to come again. He remained 
to say a few words to me. 

“ Doctor,” said he, “ I do not know what I 
can do. My mother has not yet given her 
consent to our marriage. She is heart-broken, 
but I will try to do right.” 

Faithfully he came day after day to see the 
little mother,—my Mater Felix, as I was then 
wont to call her,—and when her strength re¬ 
turned sufficiently he took mother and baby 
away to a place prepared for them. But the 
struggle was not yet at an end. His old 
mother still withheld her consent to what she 
considered the sacrifice of her son. I knew 
not what the future was to be, but the young 
man’s face prophesied a victory. 

Years passed. No word had I heard of the 
actors in the tragedy just narrated. 

One day I made arrangements by letter for 
the reception of a private patient into the Ma- 
63 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


ternity building. The best room and most 
careful attention were sought by the writer 
for his wife. The name did not awaken 
any memories within me. When the patient 
arrived she was shown to her room, and the 
following day I saw her. She was a refined, 
beautiful lady, of elegant manners and gentle, 
sweet presence. She looked inquiringly into 
my face. I greeted her, and, after the usual 
questions as to her general health, gave some 
directions to her nurse, who, soon after, left 
the room. 

The patient then turned to me and said: 

“ Doctor, you do not remember me?” 

“ Have I known you before ?” said I, seek¬ 
ing to recall the fair face before me. 

“ Yes,” said she. “ Do you not remember 
the poor, forlorn Magdalen? I am now Mrs. 
Walter Blank; no longer the sorrowing woman, 
but the joyful wife and mother. Walter and 
I were married soon after we left the hospital. 
A little later his mother came and asked me to 
make our home with her, and we have such a 
happy home! My little boy, to whom his 
grandmother is devoted, is staying with her 
while I am here. I have tried so hard, doctor, 
to make myself worthy of my dear husband, 
and he says he is very, very happy with me. 

64 


MATER DOLOROSA—MATER FELIX. 


When we found another little baby was to 
come to us, I told him I wanted to find you 
again. I could not forget how my happiness 
came through you. I owe it all to you, dear 
doctor, all to you !” 

“ No, my child,” said I, as I looked into the 
sweet, matronly face, “ not to me, but to the 
Providence that chose to temper the wind to 
the shorn lamb through the humble instru¬ 
mentality of a woman doctor.” 


65 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


“ Six minutes of five,—time for one more 
paragraph!” 

Resolutely the girl bent her eyes upon the 
sheep-bound book lying in her lap; but in 
spite of her determination to be diligent, her 
gaze wandered once more to the open letter 
in her hand. 

“ Rachel, dear,” the message ran, “ may I 
see you on Friday afternoon at five ? If you 
have a lecture for that hour, please cut it for 
the sake of yours faithfully, Howard.” 

She closed her eyes and still could see the 
dear, familiar, written words, but although she 
had read again and again the printed para¬ 
graph she could not grasp its meaning. 

“Three minutes of five ! Where is my boasted 
power of concentration ?” she laughed, and 
in answer to her upward glance the squirrel in 
the etching above her head seemed to give a 
knowing wink. 

Beneath her window passed the students on 
66 




A Woman’s a Woman for a that 
















ONE SHORT HOUR. 


their way to lecture. In obedience to Howard’s 
su gg es ti° n , Rachel was “ cutting,” but was 
burning a candle to conscience by bravely try¬ 
ing to be studious until the moment of his 
arrival. 

A knock at the door made her heart 
bound. 

“ Mr. Henderson is here, Miss Rachel ; 
shall I ask him to come up ?” said the 
maid. 

Rachel glanced hesitatingly around the cozy 
sitting-room, which she had prepared with 
especial care for this occasion, and then 
answered: 

“ No ; I will come down in a moment.” 

She reflected, “ I shall not hurry; perhaps 
now I can understand that provoking para¬ 
graph !” 

But the moment of waiting seemed very 
long, and the paragraph as incomprehensible 
as ever. So with a light laugh she put both 
letter and book aside and tripped down the 
stairs. 

The young professor turned toward her 
with a happy smile, and looked into the joy¬ 
ous eyes that sought his own. 

“ How glad I am to see you!” exclaimed 
the girl; then, as a gust of wind swept the 
6 ? 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


snow against the window, “and did you have 
a fierce battle with the elements in order to 
reach me ?” 

“ I would brave much more to reach you, 
dear!” he said. “ But must I spend an hour 
in this everybody’s room ? Did you not 
promise to receive me in your sanctum ?” 

Chiding his impatience, she led the way to 
her own sitting-room, and had scarcely closed 
the door before his arm caught her in a quick 
embrace. 

“ Sir!” she exclaimed, in mock indignation, 
“ if I entertain you here, you must be upon 
your good behavior.” 

Then, relenting as she saw his look of con¬ 
trition, she laughed lightly and became at 
once the ideal hostess. 

Seating herself at the dainty tea-table, she 
said: “Let me make you a cup of tea, 
Howard; I am afraid you are chilled.” 

Smiling he acknowledged the courtesy, and 
while he wandered about the pretty room she 
watched both him and her tiny kettle with 
that wonderful art of divided attention that 
belongs only to a graceful woman. As he 
caught sight of the calendar hanging above 
her desk, he dipped a pen in crimson ink and 
silently encircled the date. The quiet action 
68 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


pleased her, and she blushingly admitted that 
this was indeed a “ red-letter ” day. 

Among the cushions of the window-seat 
lay a guitar, and Howard, touching it softly, 
sang an old song that she loved: 

“ Come, sit awhile beside me, 

Beneath the stars’ pale light, 

And, oh, forbear to chide me, 

For I am sad to-night. 
***** 

“ Love came without a warning, 

Too true, too pure to scorn ; 

Like the radiance of the morning 
’Twas of thy beauty born !” 

As he watched her, sitting there in her 
simple gown, her golden brown hair waving 
caressingly across her brow, the heavy coils 
unadorned save by a single rose, her tender 
gray eyes glancing by turns at him and the 
tea she was pouring, he thought that surely a 
man might be forgiven for loving her even if 
she was a “ new ” woman. 

Gently touching the strings again, he sang 
“ Oh, promise me,” but on reaching “ the 
violets that sing of love unspeakable that is to 
be,” he broke off with a sigh, and, reaching 
for her hand, said, pleadingly: 

“ When, dear? Oh, sweetheart, how much 
happier we might be !” 

69 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


“ I do not think so," she replied, bringing 
his tea, and sitting down beside him. “ This 
is perfect; you love your work and I love 
mine. Life is full of interest and joy for us 
both. I am proud of you, and," with a little 
blush, “ I hope you are proud of me," then, 
confidently, “ yes, I know you are, for it is 
your encouragement that has made my col¬ 
lege work so happy." 

He lapsed into meditation. Then, with a 
grave glance, he said : 

“ I really believe you love medicine more 
than you love me." 

She looked at him, her eyes flashing a quick 
rebuke, then she softened. 

“ Have I not said I loved you ? Did you 
not find my book resting on your letter?" 

“ Yes, but the book was on top !" 

She gave him an arch glance and would 
have answered him in gay, girlish fashion, but 
catching sight of his grave face, her mood 
changed suddenly, and she said : 

“ What is the use of discussion ? Have we 
not ‘ mutually and severally agreed aforetime ’ 
that marriage and medicine need not conflict? 
Have you not admitted that my medical study 
would make me womanly, brave, and self- 
confident, and that because of it I should be- 
70 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


come a more congenial, sympathetic wife than 
I should otherwise have been ?” 

His fleeting smile gave place to an expres¬ 
sion of pained determination. He answered 
her with evident effort. 

“Yes, we did talk it all over before you 
entered the medical school, and I was thor¬ 
oughly sincere in wishing you success. I 
know that your friends were amazed because 
I openly admired your spirit and encouraged 
your desires ; but, Rachel, dear, although I 
loved you then you were not what you 
have become,—the one woman on earth for 
me!” 

His eyes pleaded for him eloquently. Her 
hand rested on his hair an instant in swift 
caress, as she glanced apprehensively at his 
untouched cup. 

“ Come, dear, the tea is cooling ; do drink 
it while by turns you scold and pay me com¬ 
pliments.” 

He drank and praised it mechanically ; 
then, setting down the cup, he continued 
grimly: 

“ I suppose it is the old difference between 
the abstract and the concrete. I gave you 
advice in words I should not like my English 
class to hear. Do you remember I said I 
7i 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


* gloried in your grit,’ and so I do even now. 
You are the bravest girl I know, and without 
doubt could * take up arms against a sea of 
troubles,—’ ” 

“And by opposing end them ?” she inter¬ 
rupted, airily; “then let me end these. I’ll 
not listen to another word. For the first time 
in your life you remind me of the many other 
well-intentioned friends who have never 
missed an opportunity to assure me of the 
error of my chosen way. You are being in¬ 
fluenced by a too-orthodox environment!” 

“ Why do you think so ?” 

“ Oh, I feel sure that that old fogy Dr. 
Matthews has been giving you suggestions as 
to domestic felicity of the Arcadian type!” 

He took up his cup and toyed with the 
spoon. His manner was non-committal. 

“ And you have been dreaming of a rose- 
embowered cottage, with the hum of a spin¬ 
ning-wheel floating through the open window, 
the spinner breaking off her song to run 
and welcome you. Pray, did you complete 
the idyl by fancying yourself clad in pic¬ 
turesque farmer’s costume, a great straw hat 
on your curly locks, and over your manly 
shoulder a rake with new-mown hay lingering 
in its teeth ?” 


72 


(XNE SHORT HOUR. 


Her satirical tone changed suddenly. 

“ No, Howard, you are not that pastoral 
type of man, noram I that poem of a woman. 
Let us, then, come to the present and the 
practical.” 

If Rachel was mistaken in her desire to 
ignore a subject so closely related to the future 
happiness of her lover and herself, just as 
grievously was he mistaken in his apprecia¬ 
tion of the steadfast purpose of the woman 
he wished to make his wife. Many an even¬ 
ing he had dreamed before his bachelor fire 
of the sweet face that would some day greet 
him there. But as he dreamed he thought, 
and in time his strong desires led to new con¬ 
victions. He had carefully concealed from 
Rachel his awakened theories concerning 
married life, and not until he felt sure of the 
unanswerable strength of his own position 
had he ventured upon an argument so difficult 
to lead to the happy conclusion he coveted. 
Had he been less intent upon gaining his 
point he doubtless would have taken warning 
from the deepening lines in Rachel’s face, and 
would have realized that the steady light of 
determination in her gray eyes was very differ¬ 
ent from the coquettish glances which the 
lady of his love was wont to bestow. With a 
73 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


curious want of perception he held to his 
argument in his own way. 

“ Dearest, I hate to be so persistent, but 
when a man’s heart is bound up in a question 
like this, he is necessarily selfish. Do let me 
talk a little of what is so important to me. I 
should deceive you if I let you believe that I 
feel just as I felt three years ago. I must 
confess that Baker’s marriage has done 
much to modify my views. His home is so 
cozy, his bride so charming; whenever I call 
they give me so cheery a welcome that I’ve 
gone home to think of how different it would 
all be if our comfortable chat were interrupted 
by a clang of the bell and the query, ‘ Is the 
doctor in ?’ I have imagined what a flurry there 
would be as the dainty house gown was ex¬ 
changed for street dress, the carriage ordered, 
and the wife gone hastily out into the night. 
I confess that after an evening at Baker’s I 
have gone back to my lonely rooms, and 
have thought of how my work would ‘ glow 
and blossom ’ if your influence were within 
it day by day. I need you, Rachel, and need 
you now. I have come to believe that a wife’s 
place is always with her husband,—sheltered.” 

With level eyes and tense voice she said: 

“ Is Baker’s wife your ideal ?” 

74 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


“ No,” he answered; “ she is pretty and 
winning ; that is all!” 

A toss of her head, the rose fell upon the 
floor. 

“ What a pity perfection could not be found 
for you to woo !” 

Bowing, he returned the flower which he 
had picked up and kissed. 

“ She has, my lady !” 

She flushed. 

“ This is not an hour for gallantry, Howard. 
You force me to a defense. How charmed 
you would be if I always deferred ! It is true in 
many things I should wish to defer, but—” she 
paused an instant, then continued, proudly: 
“ God gave me life before he gave me acquaint¬ 
ances, friends or lovers, and I have a theory 
that before the bar of Judgment I shall be 
questioned upon an individual basis. How 
can my life be but a supplement to yours ? I 
had fancied that my deeper self attracted you.” 

He would have reassured her, but she con¬ 
tinued : 

“ In the picture you just drew it would 
seem that it repelled you. I imagined the 
young husband left weeping by the fireside, 
sorrowfully telling the dying embers that his 
young wife did not love him half enough. Or 
75 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


did he find a book and worry through a 
chapter or two, knowing in his heart that his 
wife sacrificed quite as much in leaving him as 
he did in letting her go ? Had he no regard 
for the spirit which could set aside its own 
joy to carry comfort—perhaps life itself—to 
some poor soul ? Had he no pride in having 
won a heart large enough to gladly render 
service to a sufferer ? Would it not be worth 
a sacrifice on his part to know that his wife 
—because she was a physician—had wrested 
from death the life of one who, perhaps, was 
the only light of a poor man’s life?” 

She paused, then with a break in her sweet 
voice, she said: 

“ Ah, Howard, if only once you could 
hear the fervent ‘ Thank God, you have come !’ 
that springs to the lips of the pain-racked one, 
and could but see the gratitude in her eyes, 
you would realize that the tear on the hard- 
lined face and the hope in the trusting 
gaze are dearer—yes, forgive me—than ca¬ 
resses !” 

Howard sat with averted face, and she, 
thinking him moved, grew yet more earnest. 

“ Nor is there any bodily danger in such 
missions. The woman doctor is as safe among 
the wretched poor as if she were a Sister of 
76 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


the Church. Besides, your picture repre¬ 
sented an emergency. Think, dear, even if 
the wife were not a physician, she would per¬ 
haps be summoned quite as inopportunely to 
give help to a distressed neighbor. You 
would despise her if she did not respond !” 

Her cheeks flamed; she quivered with ex¬ 
citement. He thought she had never seemed 
so beautiful and dear a possession. He almost 
wished that the discussion might end, but he 
had precipitated the issue and must stand by 
his colors. 

“ I can support you. A man doesn’t want 
his wife to be independent of his care. I would 
rather you should not earn money. I want to 
give you all that you need.” 

“The only gift worth having—your love—is 
yours to give always,” she answered. Recog¬ 
nizing the new phase of the question, she 
said : 

“ If I had a fortune left me, would you not 
be willing to have me spend it ? And if it 
enabled us to afford pleasure to others, you 
would rejoice with me. If we could travel 
and enjoy the treasures of the world, meet 
congenial people, and bask in the sunshine of 
many dreams fulfilled, feeling all the while no 
anxiety over expense, you would accept the 
77 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


situation resignedly, would you not? But 
because I have within me the power to help you 
win these very pleasures, you demur and are 
quite miserable.” 

He seemed in a revery. She put her hands 
on his shoulders and shook him gently. 

“ No, you can’t be that!” kissing his fore¬ 
head. “ Oh, Howard, say you are not!” 

He did not reply. She uttered a little cry 
of distress and entreaty. 

“ Howard, dear Howard, what does this 
silence mean ?” 

She loosened her grasp and leaned against 
the table. Her head drooped, her breast 
heaved, but not a sound escaped her. At last, 
drawing herself up and looking straight at 
him, her voice sounding strange at first, but 
gathering strength as she went on, she said: 

“You have changed completely. Your 
own feelings seem to be your only thought. 
Men talk about their sweethearts’ happiness 
as the one object in life and all that,”—her 
voice failed—“ but when it comes to testing 
this nobly generous spirit it becomes quite 
another story. You would doubtless be de¬ 
lighted if I threw my arms around your 
neck and said, ‘ My love, my plans for the 
future crumble into ashes, and from them one 
78 


ONE SHORT HOUR. 


Phoenix rises—you—and in spite of all the 
days and hours I have toiled, all the criticism 
I have faced, all the heartaches I have borne, 
you would be glad if I gave up this last year 
of my course, the goal unreached!’” 

She paused, expecting him to say he would 
not; but no, with a thrill of joy he held out 
his arms, with a pleading cry: 

“ You would,—for my sake?” 

Her hero had fallen; alas, his image was of 
clay! With sudden calmness, she said : 

“ The choice seems to lie between marriage 
and medicine.” 

His eyes answered. The solemn chimes 
rang out, the clock in the gray college tower 
pealed forth six. She crushed the rose in her 
hand, its petals fell among the cups. 

“ I have chosen, Howard,—farewell!” 


79 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS 
LOVE.” 


The dispensary bell jangled noisily in re¬ 
sponse to a vigorous pull from outside. A 
temporary lull in the busy day had granted 
the doctor an opportunity to take those few 
stitches that always await the wearer of femi¬ 
nine attire, and she now sat, needle poised in 
air, awaiting the knock upon her door. 

“ Dr. Brockway, there is a woman with a 
little girl downstairs, asking for you. I told 
her it was out of hours, but the child was 
crying, and I thought perhaps you’d come 
down.” 

“ Certainly, Mrs. Ray,” said the doctor, 
putting aside her work, and smiling up into 
the kind face of the housekeeper. “ Perhaps 
the little thing is suffering.” 

A few moments later Dr. Brockway was 
soothing the complaining child, and rubbing 
its half frozen hands while she listened to the 
mother’s fretful, disconnected account of the 
80 




A Nursery Tea Party. 




















THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


physical trouble which had brought them to 
the dispensary. The day was a bitter one. 
A thin covering of snow upon the ground 
creaked under the feet of the passers-by, and 
drew melancholy notes from the slow wheels 
of heavy wagons. The sun had long since 
said good-bye to the short, narrow street 
where the dispensary stood as one of a long 
line of small, brick houses, and a chilly 
dreariness had settled over the heart of the 
city. Out on the Back Bay, where fitful gusts 
chased one another around abrupt corners, 
people were pausing at this very moment to 
gaze at the glorious sunset reflected in the 
wintry water of the Charles. The poor peo¬ 
ple in the hemmed-in portions of the city do 
not miss the sunsets. They are well used to 
the dull half-light that creeps by three o’clock, 
on winter afternoons, into their miserable 
streets and squalid tenements. Even the dis¬ 
pensary doctor, who had lived but two months 
in the little house that formed a branch of a 
large hospital outside the city limits, had 
grown so accustomed to the gray dreariness 
of her surroundings that she scarcely missed 
the warmth and beauty of the life which, for 
the sake of knowledge and experience, she 
had for the time renounced. 

81 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


Dr. Brockway was an attractive woman of 
thirty-five years. Motherless since eight 
years of age, and accustomed from childhood 
to anticipate the necessity of self-dependence,, 
she had acquired calmness of manner, control 
of impulses, and accuracy of judgment. Her 
education had been judiciously directed by 
her father, who was a clergyman and a scholar. 
He never knew that the characteristics he en¬ 
couraged in his daughter were the very ones 
most necessary to a successful physician; for 
he died while she was yet teaching in the High 
School of the town in which they lived, and 
before the desire for medical knowledge had 
taken definite shape in Helen’s mind. At the 
close of the school year, the young teacher 
sold the little house that had been very dear, 
but was now unspeakably sad, and became a 
student of medicine. Poor Helen! she had 
but half realized what such a course meant to 
a nature hitherto gently protected from con¬ 
tact with the evil of the world. She felt all 
the throes of an unwelcome pessimism, ancf 
often during those three hard, practical years 
she found herself at the brink of a determination 
to turn again into the pleasanter paths in which 
most women walk. But she labored on, and 
slowly there dawned in her a new, broad, loving 
82 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


view of humanity. It was like the stealing 
of sunshine over the hill-tops of a shadowed 
valley. Frail women and children became 
not only her “cases ” but her kindred as well. 
She was touched by the simple gratitude of 
the poor, and found a strange joy in their 
rude expressions of trust and affection. Her 
power to relieve them in sickness earned for 
her a ready welcome in their homes, and as 
she grew to love them there crept into her 
face and eyes a new light very like that which 
makes a mother’s face so sweet and tender. 

She now bent over the child who sat shiver¬ 
ing on the bench of the bare little dispensary 
room, and tried to hush the low, complaining 
cry. 

“ She’s always been an ailin’ young one,’" 
said the woman, giving the child’s ragged hood 
a resentful twitch, “ everlastin’ly coughin’. 
She’s been in three hospitals, take ’em all to¬ 
gether, and every time they thought she’d die. 
But she’s got nine lives, she has. My only 
one? Yes, thank God, and I never want no 
more. No’m ; she ain’t never had a sore knee 
before ; it’s always been her lungs. I think 
she’s shammin’. Bein’ in the hospitals so 
much she knows all about the different ways 
of bein’ sick. Cornin’ over here she was cryin* 
83 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

and takin’ on dreadful, and hoppin’ on one 
foot. Yes, I suppose that knee is a little big- 
ger’n the other, but IVe had swollen j’ints 
many’s the time and kep’ right on workin’. 
But this child never had endurance; cries if 
any one just cuffs her!” 

“ What is your name ?” interrupted the doc¬ 
tor, somewhat sharply. 

“ My name’s Simmons, and her’n is Marion.” 

“ And you live where ?” 

“ Eight-hundred-nine Carver Street.” 

“ Six squares away. Well, Mrs. Simmons, 
I am going to bandage this knee and give 
you some medicine for Marion, and I want 
you to carry her home. She mustn’t walk a 
step. Keep her as quiet as you can, and I will 
come to see her in the morning.” 

While she talked, Dr. Brockway gently 
rubbed the inflamed and swollen knee with 
ointment, then bandaged it firmly. The 
woman leaned forward and watched her with¬ 
out speaking, while Marion’s round eyes, still 
full of tears, took note of each turn of the 
bandage. 

“ It hurts !” wailed the child. 

“ I know it does,” was the doctor’s quick 
reply, ” but it will feel better very soon ; isn’t 
it better already ?” 


84 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

The child stared at the bandage and said 
nothing, but the quiver of pain about the little 
blue lips was gone, and Dr. Brockway needed 
no other answer. The mother awkwardly 
lifted the little girl in her arms, and drawing 
her thin shawl across her breast went down 
the dispensary steps. The doctor looked 
after her, cautioning her to walk slowly on the 
slippery pavement, then turned with a sigh 
and made a note of the address on a slate in 
the hall. 

The next morning Dr. Brockway paid the 
promised visit. It was very cold and dark at 
809 Carver Street, and Mrs. Simmons lived 
three flights up, so said the unkempt tenant 
of the first floor. Mrs. Simmons’ tenement 
consisted of two rooms opening into each 
other. In the front room was a bed on which 
were a torn quilt and an uncovered bolster. 
Two chairs and a rickety table completed the 
furnishing of the room. Odd garments and a 
dingy straw hat lay in one corner on the floor. 
The curtainless windows, which let in little 
enough light and air at any time, were thick 
with the accumulated dust of months. In the 
back room stood a small round table still lit¬ 
tered with the cracked cups and plates from 
which the Simmons family had partaken of 
85 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


their morning meal. A small range, whose 
oven door hung open and whose broken 
covers served to keep the fire low, stood op¬ 
posite the hall door, and around this one and 
only source of heat were grouped on this 
particular morning a curious company. 

“ Come in!” cried Mrs. Simmons, turning 
sharply toward the door, as Dr. Brockway’s 
knock was heard. A cloud of vile tobacco 
smoke greeted the young doctor. She gave 
a short cough and rubbed her eyes. 

“ Oh, come in,” laughed Mrs. Simmons; 
“you don’t mind smoke, do you? Here, you 
Sam, get out,—it’s the doctor.” 

A great, lean, shambling man beat a hasty 
retreat through the door of the front room, 
and the air cleared rapidly after his departure. 
There were two women besides Mrs. Simmons 
in the room. One of them, a colored girl with 
a baby in her arms, rose as the doctor entered, 
and said, “ Take this chair, ma’am,” while the 
other, a tall, sharp-featured woman with blonde 
hair, turned and fixed a pair of keen, inquisitive 
eyes upon the visitor. 

Society in the slums draws no sharp distinc¬ 
tions with reference to color. Black and white 
meet together about the same table or fireside, 
laugh, sing, or cry together, in utter disregard 
86 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

of decided differences in feature and complex¬ 
ion,—until they quarrel. Then the taunts and 
invectives of the white race seem to have no 
other end than to remind the colored man 
that he is black, as if that were the worst pos¬ 
sible form of condemnation. 

Dr. Brock way smiled pleasantly in recog¬ 
nition of the courtesy of the young colored 
woman, and said : “ Oh, no; please sit down. 
The baby is heavy, I know, and besides I 
must look around for my little patient; I do not 
see her.” 

Half way under the range, the bandaged 
leg held straight out on the floor and the other 
curled under her small body, was Marion. 

The child held in her arms a piece of kind¬ 
ling wood wrapped in an old gray stocking. 
Finding herself observed, she instantly thrust 
the rude plaything behind her and lay flat 
down upon it. Her black eyes shone defi¬ 
antly from under her wavy hair. 

“ You Marion, come out of that!” cried her 
mother, making a dash for the child. 

“ No—no—no !” screamed Marion. 

Mrs. Simmons picked her up as if she were 
a kitten, quickly possessed herself of the piece 
of wood, and tore off the stocking. 

“ Now you let that alone, you imp !” 

87 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 


The stick descended in one rough blow on 
the child’s shrinking form, then whizzed across 
the room and fell noisily into the wood-box. 

Seven devils entered into Marion. Kicking, 
screaming, scratching, she fought her way out 
of her mother’s grasp, and lay at last, moan¬ 
ing with anger and pain, in a pitiful little heap 
at Dr. Brockway’s feet. 

The doctor stooped over the child, hiding 
her white face from all except Marion. 

“ Mis’ Simmons, youse downright ugly,” 
said the colored woman. 

“ Mis’ Johnson, you let me alone. What do 
black folks know about children ? I tell you 
that Marion’s a bad one; see that scratch she 
give me!” 

“ Serves you right!” snapped the tall, blonde 
woman. “ You’re half drunk, Sal, that’s 
what’s the matter with you.” 

The door opened and the two morning vis¬ 
itors passed through it just in time to escape 
damage from a flying teacup. At the sound 
of shivering crockery Dr. Brockway rose and 
faced Mrs. Simmons. For an instant the two 
women looked into each other’s eyes. One 
pair were steady and determined, the other 
bloodshot and angry. 

“ Mrs. Simmons, let us sit down a moment 
88 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

and talk about Marion,” said Dr. Brockway, 
quietly. 

The woman dropped into a chair and drew 
her hand across her brow. She seemed too 
angry for words ; the doctor waited. At last 
Mrs. Simmons spoke. 

“ She knows what makes me the maddest,— 
to say I’m drunk. Sam drinks, but I never 
could stand the stuff, and that’s the straight 
truth.” 

“ I’m very sorry she made you angry, Mrs. 
Simmons, but I must confess your treatment 
of Marion has made me angry, too. Are you 
not her own mother ?” 

“ Doctor,” began Mrs. Simmons, impres¬ 
sively, “ I’m that child’s own mother, but she’s 
an imp of darkness, and she’s got clean beyond 
me. I suppose I’m rough, and I know I have 
a dreadful temper, but you’d get tired to 
death, too, if you had her under your feet all 
day, and coughin’ and cryin’ all night.” 

She cast a contemptuous look at the sob¬ 
bing child, who now lay passive on the doc¬ 
tor’s lap. 

“ I have a plan,” said Dr. Brockway, not 
caring to discuss the matter from a theoretical 
point of view. “ The child’s knee should have 
treatment such as can not be given here. 

89 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

Would you object to my sending her to our 
hospital ?” 

“ Oh, law, no ! She can go wherever you say. 
You’ve no idea how she’s in the way, ’specially 
when she’s sick.” 

Dr. Brockway bent over the child with a 
sudden throb of tenderness, then rose and 
carried her to the next room. 

“ Will Marion lie still here till the doctor 
comes for her ?” 

The little thing nodded submissively, as she 
felt the torn quilt gently tucked around her. 
Then the doctor went out, simply saying to 
the mother, “ I will send word to the hospital, 
and we shall come for the child in about an 
hour.” 

A telephone message soon brought the 
ambulance to the door of 809 Carver Street, 
and little Marion, whose only rides in her 
short life had been taken in ambulances, went 
willingly to the hospital. 

During the next month Dr. Brockway’s 
days were full to overflowing, and the thought 
of Marion and her sad lot became one of many 
similar memories. When February was over 
a new interne came to the dispensary, and our 
doctor returned to the hospital to finish her 
year by three months’ service in the medical 
90 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 


wards. On the afternoon of her arrival Dr. 
Brockway made a round of visits to her pa¬ 
tients. Each suffering one looked up with 
curiosity as she approached, and answered 
with a grateful look her pleasant words of 
comfort and encouragement. There was Mrs. 
Robb, whose ward-neighbors called her “ The 
Yellow Poppy,” because she was a victim of 
jaundice and slept a great deal. Across the 
hall poor Mrs. Ralston sat propped in bed and 
gasping painfully for the little breath which a 
fluttering heart still granted her. At one end 
of the long ward sat a group of convalescents, 
with faces turned to catch the last rays of a 
fast-fading sun. And so from bed to bed and 
room to room, until at last she reached a cor¬ 
ner of the large building where the morning 
sun was wont to linger. Dr. Brockway gently 
opened the half-closed door, and entered the 
best and dearest room in the whole hospital,— 
the nursery. A merry prattle fell upon her 
ear. Three little convalescents sat at a tiny 
tea-table and ate bread and butter served by 
a sweet young nurse in cap and apron. 

“ It is just supper time, doctor,” said the 
nurse. “ You can judge of the kind of appe¬ 
tites your little patients have.” 

Dr. Brockway smiled down upon the little 
91 


“THE greatest of these is love.” 

group, every one of whom, abandoning sup¬ 
per, had given herself up to a long, silent 
scrutiny of the new physician. 

“ It is too bad to interrupt their little tea- 
party,” she said. “ We shall find plenty of 
time to get acquainted in the days to come.” 

Her kind eyes, resting upon the little heads 
with a look that was a benediction, suddenly 
lighted with surprise. The next moment her 
hand touched lightly the soft, wavy hair of 
the child nearest her, and she quietly turned 
the little head until the bright, black eyes 
looked straight into her own. The little girl’s 
pale lips parted in a smile of recognition, but 
she did not speak. 

“ Marion, my child, is it really you ? And 
are you nearly well ?” 

“ I’m all better!” piped the baby voice. 

“ Poor little Marion has had a hard time, 
doctor,” explained the nurse. “ This is only 
the second time she has had her supper out of 
bed. They operated, you know, and her 
knee is in splints now, but Dr. Frost thinks 
she will get entirely well, I believe.” 

Then, for the first time, Dr. Brockway 
noticed that Marion held her right leg straight 
out before her, while the other bent naturally 
at the knee. 


92 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 


“ Poor little one !” she sighed, thinking not 
so much of the physical suffering that the 
child must have borne as of the miserable 
home to which she must return. 

“ Does the child’s mother come often ?” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, no, doctor; not once has she been 
here, not even when Marion was at death’s 
door. Dr. Frost went to see her, and ob¬ 
tained her consent to the operation, but she has 
never even sent a message to Marion during 
the five weeks that the little thing has been in 
the hospital ;” 

The doctor passed her fingers through 
Marion’s dark hair and did not speak at once. 
Presently, however, she turned, saying lightly: 

“ Now the tea-party must go on. I have 
interrupted it too long. There are three chil¬ 
dren in the cribs, I see.” 

“ Yes, doctor,” replied the nurse. “ This is 
little Tomaso Bertini, whose mother let him 
fall. He has a broken arm that is getting well 
fast. This poor baby was badly burned last 
week. Here is our newest case, Freddy; he 
has bow-legs, which are to be operated upon 
next Monday.” 

“ Most of the nursery cases are surgical,” 
remarked the doctor. 


93 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


“Yes,” answered the nurse, “although the 
two little children sitting with Marion at the 
table are getting over pneumonia.” 

“ Well, I shall know and love each one of 
them within the next twenty-four hours, I feel 
sure,” and with a parting smile and nod Dr. 
Brockway left the room. 

Her bed-room was on the same floor, half¬ 
way down the hall. That night she was roused 
from deep sleep by a plaintive cry. She 
heard the quick, soft step of the night nurse 
passing the door, and soon all was still again. 
The next night the same wail rang through 
the silent wards, and the doctor raised herself 
upon her elbow to listen. The footfall of the 
faithful nurse sounded fainter and fainter, and 
the doctor knew that she had gone down the 
hall to the nursery. But this time the cry 
was not hushed. Again it rang out in the 
quiet night. Mrs. Ralston began to cough, 
and the nurse’s quick tread sounded nearer as 
she came up the hall again. The child’s cry 
grew louder. The doctor rose, and, drawing 
on a fleece-lined wrapper, closed her door 
softly behind her and went to the nursery. 

In one of the six little cribs lay a child 
crying with pain, and this child was Marion. 

“ Hush, little one. There, my poor baby 
94 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

girl, don’t cry. Does the knee hurt so much, 
darling ?” 

The low, loving words welled up in the doc¬ 
tor’s heart and fell from her lips with an 
abandon that was unusual, for she was re¬ 
served in her expressions, even with children. 
Marion sat up in bed, her delicate mouth con¬ 
torted with pain, both hands clasping the poor, 
bandaged, painful knee. 

Dr. Brockway made sure that the bandage 
was not too tight, then, following a sudden 
impulse, she took the little form in her arms 
and tenderly carried it down the hall to her 
own room. She met the nurse coming out 
of Mrs. Ralston’s room. 

“ I will take Marion into my room for a 
little while, Miss Moore. You have a great 
deal to do, I know, and the child is lonely. 
Perhaps she will fall asleep again in my warm 
bed. Is Mrs. Ralston comfortable?” 

“ Oh, yes, doctor. The crying wakened her, 
and she coughed a little, but she is asleep now. 
I think Marion is lonely. She has a habit of 
waking every night at about one o’clock. 
But you do not want her in your bed, do you, 
doctor? I will try to keep her as quiet as 
I can.” 

But Marion, already half asleep, clung to 
95 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

the doctor’s neck, and so she was carried into 
the room and soon tucked under the warm 
covers. The little dark head rested close to 
Dr. Brockway’s fair face, and one tiny arm 
clasped her neck in trusting embrace, and so 
they fell asleep. 

Thus began the love of the woman and the 
child. It soon became an open secret in the 
hospital that Dr. Brockway and little Marion 
had formed a very serious attachment. 

“ Well, I do not wonder that you are fond 
of her,” said Dr. Frost, one day after she had 
dressed the knee and had given permission for 
the child to begin the use of crutches. “ She 
is a very sweet, lovable little thing. But, oh, 
what a trial she was when she first came to the 
hospital! You remember her, perhaps, as she 
was in her old surroundings. It seemed a case 
of hopeless depravity. The profanity of the 
child was awful, and her temper was almost 
uncontrollable. But in a little more than a 
fortnight all vulgar expressions and outbursts 
of passion dropped away from her like worn- 
out garments. The quiet of the hospital, the 
kindliness and refinement, all combined to re¬ 
generate the little lost soul. She thrives in 
good moral soil as a neglected plant revives 
under the influences of water and sunshine.” 

96 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 


The tapping of the little crutches became a 
familiar sound in the hospital. Marion was 
very active and soon learned to swing herself 
from place to place with astonishing rapidity. 
She was such a little sunbeam in the wards 
that no one ever thought of restricting her ex¬ 
cursions, until one fateful day a terrible revo¬ 
lutionist appeared in the person of a newly- 
appointed Superintendent of Nurses. This 
cold-hearted creature lost no time in issuing 
a command that Marion be restrained in the 
nursery. The patter of the crutches was an¬ 
noying, she said, and the freedom of the child 
was but one evidence of the careless discipline 
which up to this time had been tolerated 
to the discredit of the hospital manage¬ 
ment ! 

And so it was that on the morning following 
the superintendent’s assumption of authority, 
Dr. Brockway heard a wistful call, and, look¬ 
ing down the hall, saw a little dark head rest¬ 
ing on the threshold of the nursery door, 
and a pair of bright eyes turned appealingly 
toward her. 

“ Do’tor Brotwee! Do’tor Brotwee !” called 
Marion, softly but insistently. 

The doctor hurried to the child, and stooped 
to raise the tiny form from the floor. 

97 


/ 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE." 

“ What is it, my dear ?” she asked in surprise. 

“ Mus y I stay here?” said Marion. 

“ No, indeed, dear. I wondered where my 
little girl was this morning ; no patter, patter 
of the little crutches did I hear.” 

Just then a nurse came in, who, with many 
wry faces and glances over her shoulder, ex¬ 
plained the recent mandate of the already 
unpopular superintendent. 

“ Well, I’ll tell you what we can do,” said 
the doctor, with a light laugh. “ I have some 
letters to write, and Marion shall spend the 
morning with me. Come, sweetheart, I’ll 
carry you !” 

Marion laughed with glee as she was borne 
off to the safe haven of Dr. Brockway’s room. 
Such a morning as it was! Seated in a 
tiny chair, which was there for her especial 
use, Marion rocked to and fro, nursing the 
latest addition to her rapidly increasing doll 
family. When every one of her children had 
at last been rocked to sleep six separate times,. 
Marion grew restive, and the doctor turned 
from her writing to see what she was doing. 

“ May I sweep ?” asked Marion, catching 
sight of a brush that hung beside the bureau. 

“ Of course you may, dear,” said the doctor,, 
taking down the brush. 

98 


THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


The child rose eagerly, balancing herself 
with the aid of her crutch. 

“ I know how,—see me !” she cried, and the 
doctor watched the little one’s quick, deft 
motions as she pretended to sweep whole 
panfuls of dust from the floor. 

“You born housekeeper!” laughed Dr. 
Brockway. “ I wish—” 

She suddenly paused. A wish had risen to 
her lips that never until that moment had 
taken the form of words. Why should she 
not have the child with her always ? Why need 
the sweet, domestic nature that was budding 
in the little girl be sacrificed to such an ex¬ 
istence as she had known but had already 
forgotten ? Why not make definite arrange¬ 
ments to take the child away from a heart¬ 
less mother and a cruel life of poverty and 
degradation ? The doctor’s eyes filled as she 
watched the baby hands grow tired in their 
unaccustomed task. 

“ Come here, little blessing,” she said; “it 
is time now for an orange and a kiss. Which 
shall I give you first ?” 

The child flung her arms about her foster- 
mother’s neck, and put up her sweet red mouth 
for the kiss. Hiding her face in the child’s 
wavy hair, Dr. Brockway silently resolved 
99 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

never to let this little white soul grow dark 
again in the tarnishing atmosphere of vice. 

One afternoon, ten days later, Dr. Brock¬ 
way happened to be passing the nursery door, 
and, as usual, she peeped in. Much to her 
surprise she saw a woman sitting there, and 
on this woman’s lap sat Marion. The child’s 
quick eye caught sight of the doctor, and she 
slipped down and limped across the room. 
Taking Marion’s hand, Dr. Brockway slowly 
entered. 

“ You are Marion’s mother,—I remember. 
Is this not the first time you have been 
here ?” 

“ Yes, ma’am, it is. It was so far out here, 
—and I never seemed to get the time,—and 
lately I’ve been half sick myself; only a sore 
throat, but I feel sort of mean yet. She’s— 
quite—different!” 

The last three words came very slowly, and 
there crept into the woman’s hard-lined face 
a strange, half tender expression as her eyes 
rested curiously upon the quiet, clean, sweet¬ 
voiced baby girl that used to be hers. 

A peculiar, resentful feeling arose unbidden 
in the doctor’s heart. Every beat seemed to 
say, “ No, no, you must not, can not love 
her now,—I want her—I love her !” The 


IOO 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

woman noticed nothing, but she did not take 
Marion in her arms again. After a few awk¬ 
ward attempts at conversation, she rose ab¬ 
ruptly, stooped quickly and kissed Marion 
on the mouth, then hurried from the room. 
Dr. Brockway put the child aside more hastily 
than she had ever done before, and followed 
the mother. 

“ Mrs. Simmons, you will come again ? 
Come soon. I want to see you, talk with 
you,—about something important!” 

“ Yes, I’ll come; next week, perhaps,” 
was the answer; then, as she seemed anxious 
to get away, Dr. Brockway did not detain her, 
but went back for another look at Marion. It 
was strange how she had grown to love this 
child,—a poor little low-born creature, yet so 
sweet, so dear, so necessary ! The mother’s 
visit lingered in the doctor’s mind and troubled 
her to an unaccountable degree. Certainly 
the mother had the first, best right; that could 
not be denied, and must not be forgotten. But 
it was very hard to look at the matter dispas¬ 
sionately. Love grows impatient when con¬ 
fronted by cold, inflexible facts, and Helen 
Brockway struggled desperately against the 
thought of her child-love compelled to live 
again in poverty, wretchedness, and sin. Yet 

IOI 


“the greatest of these is love. 


it looked very much as if Mrs. Simmons 
wanted her baby back again. 

***** 

The morning rounds were nearly over 
when the visiting surgeon asked to see the 
children. Dr. Brockway led the way to the 
sunlit nursery. The room was unusually 
quiet. There were but three children now,— 
only Freddy, and the poor burned baby, and 
Marion. There had been some intimation of 
sending Marion away, for she could get about 
now without a crutch, and the wounded knee 
was healed. On this morning the child came 
forward very slowly as the physicians entered 
the room, and her face was grave. Her eyes 
were dull and her mouth was quivering. 

“ What is the matter with my little Marion?” 
said Dr. Brockway, and stooping she lifted 
the child in her arms. The little dark head 
nestled on the doctor’s neck, and the child 
said, wearily: 

“ My froat is sore!” 

Dr. Brockway felt a sudden chill of fear, 
and thought of the mother’s kiss. 

“ Your throat, darling? Let Dr. Brockway 
look at it.” 

Evidently the look was not reassuring to 
either Dr. Brockway or Dr. Frost. 

102 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

“ It may be only tonsilitis,” said Dr. Brock¬ 
way. 

“ I sincerely hope it will develop into noth¬ 
ing more serious,” replied Dr. Frost, but her 
tone showed doubt. 

They put the child to bed in a cottage re¬ 
served for contagious cases, and detailed two 
nurses. But within twenty-four hours the 
disease had gained terrible headway. Dr. 
Brockway fought in silent desperation. That 
Marion might die seemed an absolute impos¬ 
sibility. But no power on earth could have 
saved the child; her naturally frail con¬ 
stitution gave way at every point, and on the 
evening of the third day of her illness her 
grasp upon Dr. Brockway’s hand suddenly 
tightened and the little life went out. 

Many hours afterward, Dr. Brockway re¬ 
membered with a start that she had sent no 
word to Marion’s mother. But she was re¬ 
assured on finding that a message had been 
sent as soon as Marion was known to be 
seriously ill. As Mrs. Simmons had moved, 
and was traced with considerable difficulty, the 
message of illness became that of death before 
she received it. 

***** 

It was a fortnight since Marion’s prattle had 
103 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

been heard in the hall, and Dr. Brockway was 
making preparations to leave the hospital. A 
late snowstorm laughed in the face of ap¬ 
proaching spring, and bowed the barren trees 
under the weight of its sodden burden. 

Up the hospital hill toiled a woman thinly 
clad in a scant, black dress. She shook the 
damp snow from her shawl, and stamped her 
feet on the step, while waiting for an answer 
to her ring. 

“ Yes, Dr. Brockway is in. Sit down, 
please, in the reception room.” 

The woman entered, but stood in the hall 
until the doctor came. Helen looked worn 
and pale, and a new sadness was in her eyes. 
But when she met her visitor her face lighted 
with pleasure. She clasped the woman’s 
chilled hands in both her own. 

“ Mrs. Simmons, I can not tell you how 
glad I am to see you. Let us come into this 
warm room, where we shall not be disturbed. 
You must dry your wet skirt, and I will have 
a cup of hot tea made for you. See how you 
shiver !” 

Under the kindly influences of warmth and 
sympathy, Mrs. Simmons opened her heart. 

“ I’ve wanted to come and talk with you, doc¬ 
tor. The sight of Marion so quiet and gentle, 

104 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.’ 


up there in the nursery, made me think of the 
time when I was a little girl. I had as good a 
home, when I was young, as ever a girl would 
want. But I got wild, not havin’ any mother, 
and one night at a dance I married Sam Sim¬ 
mons because he dared me to. Then father cast 
me off, and we came to Boston. Sam was shift¬ 
less, and we both got down so low that we didn’t 
care much for anything. You saw us, you 
know how we lived. Well, I hadn’t a spark 
of pride in me till that day when I came 
here and saw Marion so like a little lady in 
her ways, with her skin so soft and her hair 
so smooth. I tell you, it made me feel more 
guilty than all the threatening and scoldin’s 
my father ever gave me. I made up my mind 
I’d be a better mother to the child,—and now 
I’ll never have the chance. I thought I’d 
come and thank you, doctor, for all you did for 
her. I saw how Marion loved you, better’n 
she ever could have loved me; but that was 
natural, you were good to her.” 

Mrs. Simmons looked hard at a corner of 
the rug at her feet, and spoke with effort. Dr. 
Brockway could not answer. She seemed to 
feel again the tightening clasp of a tiny hand. 

“ Sam was killed six weeks ago,—accident 
on the street. I moved soon after to the other 

105 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.” 

side of the city, and I was tryin’ to get a nice 
home ready for my little girl. I thought I’d 
like you to know. I wish there were some 
way to let her know, too!” 

A hundred thoughts were flying through 
the doctor’s active mind. She knew that the 
regeneration of this woman would be many 
times more uncertain than that of her little 
child had been ; yet, might it not be possible ? 
Was it not, at all events, worth the trial ? 
When Mrs. Simmons rose to go, the doctor, 
rising, too, stood gazing into the eyes of 
Marion’s mother. A flash of memory recalled 
to her one other time when they had gazed 
into each other’s eyes. How changed the 
conditions ! 

“ Mrs. Simmons, will you let me help you ? 
I meant to ask you to let me take Marion to 
my own home. If her mother will come in¬ 
stead, I feel sure she will find life brighter and 
happier than the past has been. I am going 
to Pennsylvania to begin practice. Will you 
come and keep house for me ?” 

At first the woman did not seem to hear 
aright, then as the full meaning of the doctor’s 
words became clear to her, gladness awakened 
the forgotten beauty of her eyes, and emotion 
convulsed her softened features. 

106 


“ THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE. 


“ Doctor, I will go to the ends of the earth 
with you, and I will be your faithful servant. 
Thank you,—thank you !” 

Dr. Brockway watched the thin form of the 
woman as it swayed with the wind that blew 
gustily down the hospital hill, then a flurry of 
snow and a mist of tears hid Marion’s mother 
from view. 


107 


REMINISCENCES OF MEDICAL 
STUDY IN EUROPE. 
(1889-1890.) 


A woman can travel alone over the whole 
world with ease and satisfaction, provided her 
letter of credit is large enough, and she knows 
what she is traveling for. A pocketful of in¬ 
troductions, and a supply of educated common 
sense are almost as necessary, and with these a 
woman is sure to meet courteous men and 
charming women. We make our own luck, 
thanks to no occult influence, and by using 
the Golden Rule we find inherent kindness in 
all human beings. Convinced of this truth, 
I armed myself with a medical diploma and 
sailed for France. 

After I had seen the Paris Exposition, the 
great art galleries, the shops, and the usual 
sights, and had become accustomed to the 
language, I decided to get out my medical 
introductions and begin hospital work. Ac¬ 
cordingly, I wrote a note to M. le Dr. Pean, 
108 



REMINISCENCES. 


the most famous surgeon in the city, and 
copied it in my plainest writing, asking to be 
allowed to assist at his operations at Maison 
Sante. I signed the note with my full name, 
and almost by return post came a reply ad¬ 
dressed to “ Monsieur Katub ” (for Kate C.) 
etc., etc., inviting me to assist that very day at 
ten o’clock. Here was a predicament! What 
would M. Pean say when instead of a great 
and famous man he saw an undersized and 
very humble woman doctor ? 

However, I forced my shrinking self to go 
to the “ Maison ” and see what I could. I 
presented my card, the Sister looked at it, 
consulted her book, and said, “ M. Pean is 
expecting a gentleman, not a woman.” I 
grew very red, and explained that my poor 
writing had caused the mistake, and the Sister 
decided to let me go up. I think that my 
heart must have knocked at the door, it was 
thumping so loudly, and when the door 
opened I saw a dozen men and two Sisters, 
all in white aprons, standing around a table 
on which was an etherized patient. By the 
washstand, with his face to the wall, stood a 
very large man with black, curly hair in which 
were threads of white, and a back very broad 
and massive. He was scrubbing his great 
109 


REMINISCENCES. 


arms and hands, but when he heard the door 
close he turned, the Sister pronounced my 
name, and with a look of immense surprise 
flashing over his kindly face, he said, “ Mais 
une femme !” and gave me so cordial a grasp 
that I felt very small indeed. The men made 
room for me, and I stood in the front row. It 
was the first operation of its kind that I had 
seen, and one for which M. Pean is justly 
famous, but I, fresh from an interneship in a 
New England hospital, stood there and won¬ 
dered how he could keep his patience with 
that old, spectacled bald-head who acted as 
first assistant. The old fellow released his 
hold on the traction-forceps so often that even 
I grew indignant and others looked nervous, 
when like thunder out of a clear sky came a 
quick “ Sapristy, can’t you hold that down ?” 
For a few moments nothing was heard but 
the dripping of the irrigation fluid and the 
click of instruments, then the old fellow grew 
tired again and actually dropped a volsellum. 
Thoroughly aroused, the great Pean fluently 
told the man what he thought of him in swift 
French, and then with a polite, but command¬ 
ing, “ Madame, voulez vous ?” handed me 
the instruments. Never shall I forget the 
strain of the next fifteen minutes, nor the 
no 


REMINISCENCES. 


minutiae of that operation. The muscular 
effort had tired the trained assistant, and it 
seemed greater than I could endure, and had 
I not felt that the reputation of all the women 
doctors of America was at stake, I should 
have dropped the instruments after three min¬ 
utes. I frequently “ assisted ” M. Pean after 
that morning, but none of the cases required 
such strength or continued watchfulness as 
this one. 

Paris hospital experiences bring before my 
mind many portraits. One of the pleasantest 
is that of the late Dujardin Beaumetz. Being 
a friend of my father’s, he often came with his 
carriage to take me to his u Hopital Cochin,” 
where he was experimenting with antipyrin, 
the salicylates, and other new remedies. I can 
see him standing in the ward, by a bedside, 
giving a lecture on gout. He screwed his 
eyes tight shut, one hand nervously moving 
back and forth over his mouth so that every 
word came out through his fingers, the other 
hand placed upon the patient. He was short 
and thick, though not fat, scrupulously dressed 
in the most fashionable clothing, somewhat 
bald, a little gray, and very youthful in his 
movements. 

Another memory picture is of that dear old 

iii 


REMINISCENCES. 


man, the late Professor Germain See. His 
French students were not fond of him because 
he seemed to have the opinion that they were 
generally stupid, but we Americans thought 
him the embodiment of kindness. He was 
over seventy years old, weak, thin, and 
wrinkled, though erect and tall. His hair 
was snowy white, and his brown eyes full of 
kindly humor. He wore a velvet smoking- 
cap to cover his bald head, and in his home a 
velvet house-coat of dark brown. 

Each day after we had followed him around 
the wards at Hotel Dieu, he seated himself at 
a certain table to write his orders, look at 
charts, give a talk about the most interesting 
cases, presumably some stomach troubles, and 
gossip with an interne, while a nurse brought 
him a bib-napkin and a bowl of beef tea with 
biscuits, which he ate while we all looked on 
admiringly; then, after a few more jokes with 
his assistants, generally personal, and waving 
us to the laboratories or to the door, the dear 
old doctor was gone. It seemed sad to see 
him working so hard at his age, when once he 
had been very rich and consulting physician 
to the Emperor. He had lost much of his 
property, perhaps through the fortunes of war 
or possibly in the Panama venture, so that in 
112 


REMINISCENCES. 


his old age he was obliged to live in a humble, 
scantily furnished home, and attend to his 
daily consultations. 

It was more of a task to see Charcot, for 
he was apparently not interested in helping 
women study medicine. His waiting-room 
was always crowded, and I was given appoint¬ 
ments at the Salpetriere, that immense hospi¬ 
tal famous in the history of Paris, and still 
more famous during Charcot’s life for his 
clinics and courses on nervous diseases. It 
was there that we saw every morning, in a 
long hall, rows often or fifteen men hanging 
by their necks to cure locomotor ataxia, and 
in another hall rows of hysterical women wait¬ 
ing to be hypnotized. Charcot examined 
each hastily, and like a great potentate judged 
and ordered, and with solemn haste prescribed 
for one case after another until an interesting 
one detained him and his full, pale face lighted 
up for a moment. 

Another of the famous men of Paris whom 
I knew was Pasteur. The memory of him 
calls up a vivid picture of a kind little man, in 
velvet coat and cap, with his left arm hanging 
helpless by his side, his left leg dragging be¬ 
hind the right, and a sad, pale, and wrinkled 
face with very bright, large eyes. He himself 

113 


REMINISCENCES. 


showed us over the institute which his genius 
had created. We saw clinics where inocula¬ 
tions were being made and fresh dog bites 
treated, and the pens where the mad dogs 
were kept, and the animals used in experi¬ 
ments,—a regular “ Zoo ” of sick and fright¬ 
ened dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs and monkeys. 
He took us through the great laboratories,, 
talking all the while about his work and its 
results, and explaining details which to him 
must have seemed very trivial; then he spoke 
of his two attacks of paralysis, and in a sad, 
low tone he said that his work was done. He 
had worked for the good of humanity, he had 
more to do, but he could no longer do it. 
Poor old man ! He lived four winters after 
that, and France and humanity did what they 
could to honor his last resting-place. 

Among the great medical men of Paris who 
are still living, after these six short years, is 
one to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. This is 
Dr. Apostoli, the master of medical electricity. 
He is tall, with great brown eyes and hollow 
cheeks, and he has a most cordial greeting 
for students ; he gives one the impression that 
neither money nor fame is the object for which 
he works, but that the medical profession all 
over the world may know the value of elec- 


REMINISCENCES. 


tricity when scientifically applied to the treat¬ 
ment of certain diseases of women. It is for 
this that he works, with a racking cough and 
hectic flush over his high cheekbones, sixteen 
hours each day, and for this alone that he 
tends his charity clinics three long afternoons 
each week, that medical men and women may 
see his methods and the marvelous results 
which he obtains. An enthusiast he may be, 
but more humane and certainly not less 
rational than some of those who prefer to cure 
by knife and ligature and adorn their office 
shelves with trophies of mutilated subjects. 

Turning from famous medical men to the 
literary lights of Paris, there is one on whom 
I called one afternoon by appointment. This 
was M. Renan, at the College de France. The 
building is in the Latin Quarter; it covers a 
whole square, and is as solid as a fortress. 
Entering through an iron gate and climbing a 
long series of stone steps, I managed to find 
the door belonging to the concierge, and was 
directed to make many turns, follow many 
passages, climb two flight of stairs, go along 
another passage and ring the bell, all of which 
I did, and was ushered into an enormous 
drawing-room to wait until M. Renan was at 
liberty. It was a long waiting, at least forty 

115 


REMINISCENCES. 


minutes, which gave me ample time to see 
everything in the room and to reflect on the 
why and wherefore of this visit to so famous 
a man. After I had made mental note of 
everything, and had recovered from my 
pleased surprise at seeing a whole bookcase 
full of American poetry, besides several 
volumes of Longfellow on the table, I decided 
that I was very foolish to be thus intruding. 
I had no great errand, and M. Renan would 
think me very silly and a bore. I tried to 
think up everything that I had read which he 
had written, and I framed conversations, all 
the time wondering why I had come, how I 
could get away, and dreading lest he should 
have forgotten that I had called, and wishing 
that he might. 

Finally his caller left, and with a very sweet- 
toned voice and a great many French 
apologies, M. Renan greeted me. My surprise 
on seeing him quite drove the assortment of 
conversations out of my befuddled brain. 
There he was, not tall and handsome and 
poetic-looking, with sentimental fervor in 
great, brown eyes, but so fat he could scarcely 
walk, with cheeks that hung down lower than 
his pointed chin, another chin below that, and 
a neck that lay in rolls of fat, a big, fat nose 
116 


REMINISCENCES. 


that might once have had a Jewish shape, 
the most minute, half-shut eyes, and a narrow 
forehead and scattered locks of hair, and a 
sort of fawning pantomime with his hands, 
which were really very white and delicate in 
their shape, and which spoke, almost as much 
as his silver tongue, such flattery as only a 
skilled Frenchman could think of. I have no 
memory of one word of the conversation, save 
on his part of compliments with smiles and 
gestures, and on mine something which called 
forth these sentiments. But the photograph 
of the man will never fade from my mind, and 
as often as I read the beautiful French sen¬ 
tences in one or another of his histories, I feel 
that there must have been two men rather than 
one incased in the almost grotesque body. 

One of the most pleasing as well as the 
most instructive periods of this year of medi¬ 
cal study abroad was the three months spent 
in medical gymnastic work in Sweden. Stock¬ 
holm is the Venice of the North, a most beau¬ 
tiful city in summer, and lively and interesting 
in winter. The people are kindness personi¬ 
fied, and I know of no better place for a 
medical woman to study, or where she can 
combine more pleasures, than there. 

The sun rises in winter at about nine o’clock, 
117 


REMINISCENCES. 


and sets soon after three. The people eat five 
meals a day, breakfast by candle-light, lunch 
at noon, dine by candle-light at four, take 
coffee at six and supper at eight. The work¬ 
ing day is then between ten in the morning 
and four in the afternoon. For a visiting 
medical student the day is divided as follows: 
Ten a. m., Surgical Clinic at the City Hospital, 
an old-fashioned, badly-arranged, barrack-like 
building, smelling strongly of carbolic acid 
and chlorid of lime. The Chief Surgeon, who 
speaks four languages perfectly, and who is 
one of the best operators I have ever seen, is 
Prof. John Berg, Surgeon to the King. He is 
a handsome, kindly man of middle age, and 
so conscientious that he considers his opera¬ 
tions failures if the patient dies. 

A cold, bleak walk across two or three 
bridges, and up one or two narrow streets, 
leads to the Central Gymnastic Institute which 
is now so well known in America through its 
graduates. Here can be seen general massage, 
medical gymnastics, school gymnastics, and 
special training, during the entire morning. 
From there one may visit an Orthopedic 
Institute, where children’s deformities are 
chiefly treated by massage; and still later in 
the day a visit may be made to the Zander 


REMINISCENCES. 


Institute, where all sorts of nervous and mus¬ 
cular diseases, deformities of all grades, and 
troubles of circulation, respiration, and diges¬ 
tion are treated by the Zander machines. 
Here Dr. Zander himself spends his days, 
perfecting and inventing new machines, and 
prescribing the treatment for his scores of 
patients. He is a very fatherly man, with 
wrinkled, anxious brow, deep-set, patient 
eyes, gray whiskers, and thin hair. His gen¬ 
tle voice and quiet manner combine with a 
something indefinable to show a great love 
for people, that may be an outgrowth of his 
religion, for he is disciple of Buddha in every¬ 
thing livable and lovable, without necessarily 
believing in the doctrine of spiritual commu¬ 
nications. 

I went with letters of introduction to Lund, 
the University town of the south of Sweden. 
I presented one to Dr. Karl Ask, the chief 
surgeon of the hospital. He came hurrying 
into the room with a sort of gruff welcome, and 
I stood mentally photographing him while he 
read the letter. He was tall enough, but was 
swollen in front to such huge proportions 
that his feet seemed quite lost beneath him. 
On this enormous protuberance rested the 
bowl of a long pipe which he was holding 


REMINISCENCES. 


between his teeth. He wore a velvet cap and 
velvet jacket. His face was ruddy, his hair 
white, and his whiskers were bristly. From 
his general appearance I felt intuitively 
that he was not a woman doctor’s friend. My 
hopes fell lower when I heard him mutter in 

Swedish, “ These-Americans, they come 

over here and expect us to talk their-lan¬ 

guage, and to show them over our hospitals, 
when they never try to speak Swedish.” I 
could see that he was growing more and more 
earnest, and I piped up in the best Swedish I 
could command, “ I’m sorry, Herr Professor 
Ask, but I understand Swedish.” You never 
saw such a change come over a man’s face. 
He looked as Balaam must have looked when 
his ass spoke. He bit his pipe on another 
tooth and grew very red while he looked me 
all over. I couldn’t think of a thing to say, 
but as soon as he had recovered his senses he 
managed to roll out any number of apologies, 
and asked how I happened to speak Swedish. 
Of course I apologized for doing so, and he 
apologized for not speaking English, and told 
how hard he had tried to learn English, etc. So 
then, in very good humor, he asked me to go 
to the hospital with him. On the way we dis¬ 
covered that we could speak French, and he 
120 



REMINISCENCES. 


continued to apologize for his rudeness until we 
reached the amphitheatre, where were assem¬ 
bled some sixty students. I was introduced 
to them in French, the clinic was carried on 
in that language, and if a student could not 
reply to a question in French he failed. 

Of the famous men and women with whom 
I worked in London I have very little that 
is new to write, for they are well known to 
readers of medical literature. Yet there is 
one who is too well known to be omitted, for 
he has always been the firmest friend to medi¬ 
cal women and the staunchest upholder of 
their cause. This is Sir James Paget. I see 
him as I last saw him, standing in his great 
library in South Kensington, a thin, good- 
looking old man with the courteous manners 
and refined good breeding of the old cheva¬ 
liers,—a knight in more than title. We had 
been sitting chatting about his old friend, Dr. 
H. I. Bowditch. He had told me anecdotes 
of his student days in Paris, and in the kindest 
manner possible he had given me cards and 
letters and suggestions that were invaluable 
to my medical study in London. Not that 
they were really necessary, for it is very easy 
for a medical woman to get what courses she 
wants in that great English city, and to pay 
121 


REMINISCENCES. 


such fees for them that she feels indebted to 
no one; and yet to have such a cordial greet¬ 
ing and hearty co-operation from one of the 
men whom the world knows best is certainly 
elevating to any one, and helps a lone woman 
to feel that she is not so much alone after all. 

In looking back over my year of medical 
study in Europe, I cannot deny that it took 
some determination to travel alone and to 
apply for admission to hospitals even with in¬ 
troductions. A woman alone is a curiosity, 
and she is made to feel that she is like a lone 
stork and must be protected. I can but laugh 
at the memory of an old middle-class woman 
with whom I had traveled for hours through 
Belgium. It was late when we were nearing 
Antwerp, and she had bored me through with 
her bead-like but kindly eyes ; finally she said, 
in a determined way, “ Madame, ou est votre 
mari ?” I told her that I had no husband. 
“ Not any?” “ No, madame.” “Where are 
you from ?” “ From America.” “America ! 

How did you come?” “ In a ship.” “ In a 
ship—alone—from America !” And she had 
not recovered when I left her with her hus¬ 
band at Antwerp. 


122 


























































One— Two —Three—Four—Five 


























A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


My eyes were tired from reading Psychology, 
so I decided to accept a long-standing invita¬ 
tion from Harriet Hilton to come up for an 
evening and see how medical students live. 
I think I was more interested than shocked 
by my first glimpse of a scene rather gruesome 
to one uninitiated. On a table under the light 
lay a brain cut in sections, and several young 
women sat about it; one standing over it 
was saying as I entered, “ Corpus Callosum , 
lamina cinerea , crura cerebri —” 

“ Do I have to meet this foreigner ?” I said 
in an undertone to Harriet, as she was about 
to introduce me. I was relieved when the 
girl who had been speaking responded to my 
salutation in gracious English, and explained 
that they were preparing for a quiz on the 
brain. After we were seated, Harriet said: 

“ Let’s dispense with brains, and I will tell 
you a strange experience I had to-day. I 
went to see Elizabeth,” she continued ; “ she’s 
123 



A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


been ill since she came back from her 
vacation in Canada, where she got chilled 
through at some ice-boat races. She had 
been amusing herself with that nonsensical 
book by Jules Verne, A Journey to the Moon, 
and I read her a short story of Bellamy’s, 
To Whom This May Come. While I was read¬ 
ing, we noticed the odor of something burn¬ 
ing, and turned to find Ted, looking like a 
cherub in the sunshine, holding a reading- 
glass between the sun and the curtain till a 
great hole was charred in the drapery. I tell 
you all these details because they have to do 
with the story. We discussed Looking Back¬ 
ward, talked about progress and reform, and 
I had just finished saying that we no sooner 
learn how to live than we die , and that we ought 
to be born old , when the maid came in with the 
medicine that Dr. O. had prescribed. I gave 
her a dose, and it produced a most singular 
effect. She seemed asleep, yet was restless, 
taking in long breaths with apparent enjoy¬ 
ment. Then she became quiet, and her pulse 
began to fail. I sent a ‘ hurry call ’ for the 
doctor, who came promptly and fortunately 
brought with him his battery. We used elec¬ 
tricity, nitrite of amyl, nitro-glycerin, inhala¬ 
tions of oxygen,—but this brings me to the 
124 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


story I was going to tell you, the story of her 
strange experiences and of what she heard 
and saw while we were trying to bring her 
back to consciousness. 

“An eager group of people stood around, 
realizing the seriousness of a gigantic enter¬ 
prise about to be undertaken. They had 
gathered about a wonderful mechanism that 
was soon to sail the aerial ocean. Prof. J. E. 
Watkins, the mechanical expert, was at the 
helm. Edison was there to manage the mar¬ 
velous electrical appliances he had brought to 
light while perfecting this air-ship. The 
party was composed of scientists, men and 
women of extraordinary bravery. A woman 
was to be the Columbus of the voyage, with 
Lieut. Peary to sustain her. She walked the 
deck impatient for the start. 

(Here Elizabeth became very restless.) 

“‘Friends,’ said Miss Columbus, ‘two con¬ 
tinents are watching us with bated breath. 
We must succeed, and I can not doubt that 
we shall, when I think of the perfection of our 
craft. In our laboratory we can generate 
more gas than would be required to float twice 
our weight. We can not starve, for we have 
a full supply of condensed foods. We have 
125 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


nothing to fear from cold, for your electrical 
suit, Mr. Edison, produces a summer temper¬ 
ature for our bodies.’ 

(Here she became alarmingly quiet, and I 
applied one pole of the battery to the back of 
her head, while Dr. O. placed the other on her 
spine.) 

“ ‘ When I think of the dangers endured by 
Arctic explorers and their scant rewards, this 
seems a luxurious journey toward assured 
success. Why are we so late in arriving at 
this method ? 

“ ‘ Every school-boy knows that the trade 
winds constitute the strata of air that inter¬ 
change between the equatorial and polar 
regions; they will pilot us to our goal.’ 

“ The great gas reservoir was now inflated, 
the engines set in motion, the tiller taken in 
hand, the moorings cut loose, and the wonder 
of the nineteenth century rose above the sur¬ 
face of the earth. Miss Columbus was ec¬ 
static ; she drew in long breaths of the clear, 
cool air. 

(At this point we gave Elizabeth inhalations 
of oxygen.) 

“ ‘ Is it days or weeks that we have been sail¬ 
ing?’ demanded Miss Columbus. ‘It is all 
like a dream.’ 


126 


A PYSCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


“The party, gathered about a table, were 
studying a chart. 

“ ‘According to our calculations/ continued 
Miss Columbus, ‘ the time has come for us to 
begin our descent; we are directly over the 
Pole.’ 

“ The order was given, and the ship began 
her downward course. 

(I gave Elizabeth a hypodermic injection of 
whisky, for her pulse had suddenly failed.) 

“ ‘ Down—down—down,—this sinking sen¬ 
sation is not pleasant!’ said Miss Columbus. 
‘ Can’t we change the direction a little ?’ 

“ Like a swan the air-ship settled toward the 
earth. It seemed to those who watched from 
the port-hole of observation that the earth 
was rising to meet them. 

“ Seas of ice ! And what were those strange 
globular spots that seemed suspended above 
the earth and glistened in the sun ? Directly 
under them was something that evidently was 
not ice. Finally the ship landed, and the 
party, speechless with wonder, stepped 
ashore. 

(Here I gave Elizabeth nitrite of amyl, 
which immediately stimulated the heart’s 
action.) 

“ They were on the outskirts of a city in a 
127 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


green country, and it was not an Arctic air 
that they breathed. As in a dream they pro¬ 
ceeded on their way. 

“ The first person they met was an old man 
steering a baby-carriage, which, if not artistic, 
was certainly scientific. A magnet connected 
with the running-gear made perpetual motion 
possible, and the carriage would have kept 
on forever but for the fact that the magnet 
was so pivoted that it could be easily thrown 
out of range of attraction by a touch of the 
hand. 

“ They were prepared for marvels, and it was 
no surprise when the old man cordially 
greeted them, saying, ‘ I have the advantage 
of you. I belong to a mind-reading people 
and understand all you would say; we have 
not, however, lost the power of speech, and 
your language is taught in our schools. It 
has been made known to us by those of your 
countrymen who have been lost in the Arctic 
regions. Through them, also, we have been 
made acquainted with your manner of life, 
with your determination to explore our seas, 
and with the inventions, of such men as your 
Mr. Edison. We have long hoped that you 
would find the way here.’ 

“ ‘ Do I dream ? Are we in the Arctic 
128 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


regions?’ said Miss Columbus, looking about 
at the luxuriant foliage, for they were in a 
park. 

“ ‘ My friends,’ said the old man, ‘ you are 
directly over the North Pole, and this temper¬ 
ature is secured by concentrating the rays of 
the sun by means of the lenses which you see 
overhead. The rays thus concentrated are 
conserved by means of an apparatus which I 
will show you. We have sufficient force 
stored in this heat not only to give us the 
necessary warmth by radiation, but to run the 
engines which generate the electricity that 
illuminates our country during our long night. 
The ingenuity of man has thus supplied us 
with what nature has withheld. But I will 
detain you here no longer to discuss these 
contrivances,’ and he led the way toward his 
home. 

“ The old man lifted the baby from the 
carriage, and, holding it in his arms, he ushered 
the party into his house. A white-haired lady 
greeted them hospitably, and was introduced 
as his wife. He handed her a parcel, and, 
turning to the party, said, ‘It is a gift; this 
is my wife’s twenty-first birthday.’ 

“ Holding the baby out to her, he continued : 

“ ‘And, friends, this is m ygrandmother; she 
129 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


is almost ninety years old, and we think her 
well preserved.’ 

“ The pretty, blue-eyed little one laughed 
and cooed. 

“ Seeing the puzzled expression on the faces 
of his listeners, he said : 

‘“You have yet to learn that some of our 
natural laws are the reverse of yours.’ (Eliza¬ 
beth’s face was a study.) ‘ Here we are born 
matured, while you come into the world help¬ 
less creatures, and years must pass ere you 
are fully developed, and by the time you have 
learned how to live you die . It is not strange 
that under such circumstances life for you 
is difficult and complicated. We are born 
with matured minds, and in a few months 
we attain our full stature. Our experience 
being hereditary, we are equipped to meet the 
exigencies of life. In our wisdom we make 
ready for that period of our life which is your 
infancy and our age. We have no poor- 
houses, no homes for aged people, no prisons. 
We live under an order entirely unknown to 
you. We regard what you term your govern¬ 
ment —your laws—as evidences of lack of 
civilization; they are admissions of incapacity. 
But how could it be otherwise with a people 
who attain wisdom only to die with it ? Where 
130 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


there is knowledge there is no need 01 
straint. Sin and crime are synonymous witn 
ignorance. Here every man is a law unto 
himself. He has reached mental, and there¬ 
fore moral, heights that transcend your knowl¬ 
edge. You are about to meet a people whose 
mental evolution has been uninterrupted and 
unhindered. Knowledge is the open sesame 
to the universe, and Nature is no longer a 
sphinx. You shall see how “the gases gather 
to the firmament; the chemic lump arrives at 
the plant and grows ; arrives at the quadruped 
and walks ; arrives at the man and thinks, 
arrives at my people and understands.” (Eliza¬ 
beth’s white face, with its wide-opened eyes 
and dilated pupils, haunts me yet. Though 
unconscious, there was in her face a look of 
intense interest.) I will tell you the secret 
that has puzzled the ages. I can, because 
being born old—’ the striking of a clock in¬ 
terrupted him. 

“ The clock was striking four when I gave 
Elizabeth a hypodermic injection of ammonia, 
and I think it was this that restored her to 
consciousness. She looked at me in a be¬ 
wildered way, and said: 

“ ‘Are you my grandmother ? Tell me,— 
Hi 


A PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STUDY. 


me,—’ She put out her hand and touched 
a hot-water bag lying near. This seemed to 
awaken her to a realization of her surroundings, 
and she soon became nearly her normal self. 

“After we left, the doctor asked me if I 
could have given her too large a dose of the 
medicine. We had the bottle with us, and 
when we reached the dispensary we measured 
what remained, and found that I had given 
even less than the prescribed quantity. Dr. 
O. said he could not understand the remark¬ 
able effects produced by it; he had used the 
drugs ever since their introduction into the 
profession, and had never before seen such 
results ; he thought it must be a case of idio¬ 
syncrasy.’' 

The hour was late when I left Harriet and 
her friends. As I went out, I looked curiously 
at the brain on the table, and wondered 
whether that complex organ would ever be 
sufficiently understood to enable us to explain 
how an ice-boat race, a reading-glass, a bat¬ 
tery, a foolish remark, and some fanciful 
stories could have produced such a curious 
experience in a drugged brain. 


132 


DR. HONORA. 


It was a glorious October day. The sun 
poured out the heat that summer had left 
in his keeping; the leaves, already rich in 
autumn tints, stirred idly in the faint breeze; 
from hidden places shy birds called softly; 
all was romance and beauty in the forest. 
But to Dr. Honora, walking along the dusty 
highway, there was no beauty, no poetry in 
the world. She had been to see an ungrate¬ 
ful, unprofitable patient, and now was walking 
back to town feeling that her life was of no 
benefit even to herself. Three years before, 
she had begun the practice of medicine in the 
little town of Lynn. In the beginning, she 
was stout of heart and prodigal of wishes; 
but pressing poverty and trials of other kinds, 
coming close one upon another, had broken 
her courage, and narrowed the circle of her 
desires, until now she felt that if she could 
only have rest she would be satisfied. She 
looked through the wire fence into the cool 
133 



DR. HONORA. 


woods, and as she looked she thought of the 
injustice in the world. 

“ Why should there be special privileges ? 
Why is this fence here ? What right has any 
man to compel me to walk over hot, dusty 
roads? Why isn’t right of way given over 
all the earth ?” Brooding in this fashion, the 
doctor grew reckless, and she determined to 
rest in the inviting woods. The fence looked 
uncompromising, but with her umbrella she 
managed to separate the barbed wires. In 
crawling through she tore her dress skirt, and 
this added to her bitterness of spirit, for this 
old faded gown was her best one. She sat 
down under a fatherly oak, whose broad 
branches and thick leaves protected her from 
the heat and from all prying eyes save those 
of the birds. Dr. Honora did not rest at 
first. Her disturbed brain whirled in mem¬ 
ory over the years she had spent in prepar¬ 
ing for her work, years in which no one had 
helped her even by sympathy. And how 
hard it had been, too, to establish herself 
in Lynn, and what a poor establishing it had 
been! But she had minded none of these 
things, for she had expected the future to 
reward her; and now, after three years’ prac¬ 
tice, she must walk two miles into the coun- 
H4 


DR. HONORA. 


try to see a patient who paid her with fault¬ 
finding. 

“ It is absurd,” she said aloud, “ that I am 
not able even to hire a horse and carriage! 
And what good have I done ? Have I really 
helped any one ? A few poor women and 
children depend on me, but if they had money 
would they not send for Dr. Bragg or some 
other man ? I am sure the mothers would ; 
the children love me, but they love any one 
who is kind to them, and as for my own state, 
I am tired, old, and discouraged. Three years 
in the town of Lynn, and I am still a stranger 
and penniless.” 

So Dr. Honora thought and talked, until 
the babbling of the brook near by soothed 
her and changed her mood. She dreamily 
watched the reflection of the leaves in the 
water, and noted the lovely red-winged black 
birds flitting in and out among the branches, 
and smiled to hear the saucy cry of the 
mocking-bird, until she fell asleep. She 
dreamed of childhood, of a pastoral life, 
where “a girl may roam at her own sweet 
will; may drive the cows or go to mill,” and 
in her dream Honora drove Pide and Lil, 
Boss and Dill, as of old; while crumply- 
horned Master Jo came bellowing down the 
i35 


DR. HONORA. 


hill, stopping to switch the dust over his 
brindle, curly-haired back, or to snort to a 
brother in a neighboring pasture, while his 
meek-eyed sisters went quietly on, halting at 
the creek to drink, but wasting no time in play 
or challenge. Our dreamer was just taking 
down the bars for the impatient cows, when 
her sleep was ended by wild cries and the 
fierce sound of unrestrained hoofs. Dr. 
Honora was so bewildered that she jumped up 
and started away from the sounds, but her 
feet slipped and she went ankle-deep into the 
brook. The shock brought her to her senses, 
and she realized that horses were running on 
the highway. She reached the fence just in 
time to see two blooded Spanish horses 
brought to a stop by a formidable bowlder. 
Regardless of her gown, Honora crawled 
through the fence and ran to the frightened 
horses’ heads, and seized the outer reins. This 
was before the time of Rarey’s wonderful dis¬ 
covery, but Honora had had some experience 
with so-called wild horses, and knew what to 
do. Her kind words and fearless manner 
soon convinced the spirited animals that a 
friend had come to them. Their dilated 
nostrils sank to the natural size, their snorting 
and trembling ceased. Just then a teamster 
136 


DR. HONORA. 


came along and gave his assistance. The 
horses were loosened from all that remained 
of the light buggy; then they were securely 
tied, and the teamster went up the road to 
look for the unfortunate driver of the run¬ 
aways. Half-way up the hillside he found 
Colonel Row, a wealthy farmer of the vicinity, 
bending over a little girl and pleading with her 
to speak to grandpa. Mr. Green took the 
child, and said: 

“ Come, there is a lady at the foot of the 
hill, she will tell us what to do.” 

The grandfather followed meekly, babbling 
childishly of the little girl’s pretty ways and 
of her love for him. Dr. Honora saw them 
coming, and ran for her medicine bag. As 
the little girl was laid down, she opened her 
eyes and cried feebly : 

“ Gran’pa—I want my gran’pa !” 

Water was brought for the parched lips and 
the dusty face, and soon the child seemed easier; 
then Dr. Honora turned to the old man, who 
was very pale, and asked if he were injured. 

“ Yes, my right shoulder;” then, turning to 
Mr. Green, he asked him to mount one of the 
horses and go into town for Dr. Bragg. 

“ Make haste, or I shall die—” and faint¬ 
ing he fell before Mr. Green could reach him. 
i37 


DR. HONORA. 


Dr. Honora brought the all-reviving arom¬ 
atic ammonia, which soon restored the Colonel. 

“ Now, sir,” she said, “I am a physician, 
and will examine your shoulder.” 

“ You !” said the Colonel. “ Who ever heard 
of a woman doctor! What do you know 
about broken bones ?” 

Honora quietly directed Mr. Green to re¬ 
move the Colonel’s coat and shirt. 

“ Now, Colonel Row,” she said, “ if you will 
kindly lie flat on your back while Mr. Green 
keeps your head and left arm as quiet as pos¬ 
sible, I’ll soon make you more comfortable.” 

A few guarded, experienced movements, 
and the doctor was gratified to hear the well- 
known click as the ball slipped back into its 
socket. Bandages were torn from the linen 
lap-cloth taken from the carriage, the shoul¬ 
der was bound down to keep it in place, and 
Dr. Honora told the Colonel he was ready to 
be sent home. 

“But what about little Jessie? She is 
strangely quiet.” 

“ Take Mr. Green’s wagon,” Dr. Honora 
said; “ go home as quickly as possible, and 
send immediately for your family physician ; 
the child will need close care for weeks to 
come.” 

138 


DR. HONORA. 


As the little girl was being lifted into the 
wagon, she gave a peculiar, piercing cry that 
made Honora shudder. When they were 
ready to start, Honora said: 

“ Good-bye, Colonel Row, I am glad that I 
was allowed to be of service.” 

The Colonel begged her to go home with 
them to receive Mrs. Row’s thanks. 

“ Besides,” he added, “ Jessie might need 
you.” 

Honora explained that professional etiquette 
forbids one physician to take the patients of 
another. 

“ But I would go with you to the house,” 
she said, “ had I not promised to be in my 
office at a certain hour.” 

“ What brought you so far from home?” 
asked the old man, curiously. 

“ I have a patient across the field yonder.” 

“ Old Mother Schneider, I warrant. She 
has worn out all the other doctors in town; 
now she’s got hold of you, has she ? Well, 
you’ll get no thanks from her for your long, 
hot walk. But her son Joe was good to my 
boy when he was sick; send your bill to 
me.” 

“ Thank you, Colonel,” she said, as she 
bowed and left them. 


139 


DR. HONORA. 


Jessie slept until five o’clock in the 
afternoon, when she awoke with the same 
piercing cry she had uttered by the roadside. 
Her face was very hot, her eyes wild and red. 
Nat, the faithful colored man, was sent for Dr. 
Bragg. The doctor, a sober, thoughtful man, 
had never before seen such a case, and he 
could no nothing but experiment. Despite 
his best efforts the child grew worse, and 
presently fell into convulsions. Dr. Bragg 
said, “ I have done all I can; send for an¬ 
other doctor if you want one.” 

Mrs. Row suggested Dr. Honora, and 
Dr. Bragg himself went to Gerome Place in 
search of her. He asked a woman who 
was dusting the office steps if Dr. Honora 
was in. 

“Yes,” answered the woman, looking up 
merrily from under her broad-brimmed hat, 
“ I am Dr. Honora. Is there anything I can 
do for you, sir?” 

Dr. Bragg introduced himself and told his 
errand. 

During the ride to Colonel Row’s, Dr. 
Bragg detailed Jessie’s symptoms. As the 
two physicians entered the sick-room, Honora 
turned white and looked quickly at Dr. Bragg. 
Then she went into the kitchen, and Dr. Bragg 
140 


DR. HONORA. 


followed. At her suggestion an energetic 
mode of treatment was begun, and the violent 
symptoms were controlled. 

When the little girl was sleeping quietly, 
Br. Honora went out into the garden to talk 
with Dr. Bragg under the old beech. They 
agreed that the case needed constant watching, 
and Dr. Honora decided to remain at the bed¬ 
side until Dr. Bragg could find a good nurse. 
The hours dragged wearily to Honora sitting 
there through the hot October afternoon and 
night. 

Dr. Bragg returned early in the morning, 
and said he had been unable to find a nurse 
for Jessie. 

“ Dr. Honora,” he added, “ if you will stay 
here I will take care of your office and your 
outside work, and will see that not one patient 
strays from the fold.” 

And Honora, with a smile, sat down again 
by the bedside. 

All day long little Jessie hung in the misty 
way of the portals of death, and all day Honora 
stayed by her. By night the crisis was past, 
and Dr. Bragg, coming in, sent Honora to her 
room to rest. After she had gone, he told the 
Rows that their grandchild was saved, but 
not by him. 


DR. HONORA. 


“ You must keep Dr. Honora a few days 
longer, if possible,” he said. 

Dr. Honora divided her time between the 
sick-room and a tent under the trees not far 
from the outer door. One evening, she re¬ 
viewed the events that had led to the present 
peace, and she felt not a little ashamed to 
remember that her prosperity began the day 
that she had decided to give up, the day she 
felt her life a worthless one; and the memory 
led her to exclaim aloud, “ How wonderful 
are Thy ways, O Lord, and Thy secrets past 
finding out.” 

“ Amen,” responded a deep, manly voice, 
and Honora looked up to see a tall man, with 
the bronzed aspect of a traveler, standing, hat 
in hand, before her. Before Honora could 
speak, Mrs. Row, who had just come out of 
the house, cried out, “ My son, O, thank God, 
my son!” and was clasped in the stranger’s 
arms. 

Dr. Honora’s heart went out to the father of 
little motherless Jessie, and as she went into 
the house her womanly tears of rejoicing 
flowed in sympathy with the mother’s. 

Days of relaxation now came to the Row 
household; all seemed to blend in one har¬ 
monious whole. For the first time in her 
142 


DR. HONORA. 


strong womanhood, Dr. Honora knew the joy 
of family life, and one of the great factors in 
her happiness was this man who met her as 
an equal; who did not search for subjects sup¬ 
posed to be suited to a woman’s comprehen¬ 
sion, but who talked of science and philos¬ 
ophy, music and literature, as though he knew 
she could understand and help him. For his 
part, Prof. Anderson thought he had never 
before met a woman so well-balanced, one in 
whom both spirit and intellect had kept pace 
with the physical development. How intelli¬ 
gently she listened while he talked of his 
plans for future work in Corea; how glad she 
seemed as he told of his past successes, and 
how readily she gave her sympathy when he 
spoke of hardships and failures. What wonder 
that dreams came to this man ! And she knew 
that the bond of sympathy between them was 
daily growing stronger; knew, too, almost 
before the thought came to the man, that she 
would some day be asked to share his work. 
When intuition gave her this knowledge, she 
was tempted to give up her own plans, and go 
with him who could make life so peaceful that 
she might in time forget the bitter, struggling 
past. But then came the thought of the des¬ 
titute, the sorrowful in her own land. From 
M3 


DR. HONORA. 


childhood she had felt as one set apart to do 
a sacred work,—a work that meant giving up 
all hope of home, husband and children of her 
own, that she might be a mother to number¬ 
less orphans ; and she knew that in Corea she 
must work hand in hand with Prof. Ander¬ 
son. 

“ Well,” she asked herself, “ is not his work 
a grand one ?” 

“ Yes,” came her soul’s answer. “ Yes, but 
it is not your work.” 

“ But I can make it mine,” her inclination 
pleaded, and so the conflict went on from day 
to day. 

One morning, early, she was returning from 
a neighboring farmer’s where she had been 
called to see a sick daughter. The glow of 
health was on her cheeks, and with her hands 
filled with clover blossoms, she made a bright 
picture; and so thought Prof. Anderson, who 
stepped forward to open the gate for her. 
They sat down under the old beech, and for 
an hour under this “ council tree ” Prof. An¬ 
derson pleaded his cause as only a man deeply 
in earnest, and with a scholarly wealth of 
words at command, can plead. Dr. Honora 
grew very pale, but as he talked all became 
clear to her, and she knew that a woman who 
144 


DR. HONORA. 


enters marriage for any other reason than 
supreme love, degrades all women. She told 
the pleader this, and added, gently, “ I do not 
love you so.” 

“ But, Honora, your life is so lonely,—be 
my comrade.” 

Dr. Honora was silent, but Prof. Anderson 
saw nothing in her face to give him hope. 
After a moment’s waiting he rose, and taking 
Honora’s hand, said: 

“ My friend, I am going ; one thing you must 
not deny me: be with my daughter as much 
as you can, and try to make her as noble a 
woman as yourself. God bless you !” 

Soon after Prof. Anderson had left her, Dr. 
Bragg came in at the gate and said : 

“Good morning, Dr. Honora. I am just 
going in to propose a little trip for the whole 
family. What do you say to a few weeks on 
a sheep farm in Virginia ? The lambs will be 
good playfellows for Jessie, and Virginia soil 
is famous for making rich, red blood!” 

This long speech gave Honora time to re¬ 
gain her self-control, and she was able at its 
close to express her delight at the prospect 
of going. 

Prof. Anderson started for the far East that 
afternoon, and the next day a merry party 
i45 


DR. HONORA. 


set out for Dr. Bragg’s old home. When 
they reached the place, Honora threw herself 
on the grass and exclaimed, laughingly, “ Dig¬ 
nity, farewell; I am a child again !” And as 
she watched the children at play, it seemed to 
her that at least a part of her youth had been 
restored. 

It was a happy place there; the sun shone 
all the time as he shines only on rare holidays 
elsewhere; the birds were always in good 
voice, and the squirrels swung fearlessly from 
branch to branch. Honora remembered her 
own early childhood, before life had taught 
her sorrow, and she found it hard to recall her 
trials; it seemed she must have been happy 
always. 

One evening, the children, tired of play, 
leaned against Honora’s knees, and pleaded 
for a “brand new story.” While she was 
talking to them, Dr. Bragg came and stood 
beside her, and when she was still he asked, 
“ Do you like it here ?” She answered with 
fervor: 

“ It is heavenly; I should like to stay for¬ 
ever.” 

Dr. Bragg placed his hands on Jessie’s head, 
and said, “ Honora, this child and many others 
need us ; let us stay here together.” 

146 


DR. HONORA. 


Honora looked into his eyes, and said, “ I 
want to stay, but you must hear how weak I 
have been,” and she told him her experience 
with Prof. Anderson. 

“ It was an awful temptation,” she ended, 
“ and I thought my desire to be useful in my 
own land had something to do with my 
strength in resisting; but I know very well 
that if you were interested in foreign missions 
I could persuade myself that it would be the 
best work in the world for me.” 

“ You dear little woman,” laughed the doc¬ 
tor, “ I watched that conflict from the begin¬ 
ning, and my heart was sore. I knew you 
would not go unless you loved him, but how 
could you help loving him? It was the 
thought of his great worth that saddened me. 
Of course I could not say a word until poor An¬ 
derson’s fate was decided, but when I knew, 
I could hardly wait to get you down here in 
my—” 

“ And did you plan the trip that morning ?” 
interrupted Honora. 

“ Yes, when I saw you crying.” 

“Oh, I am so glad,” said Honora, “ that I 
don’t have to give up my dreams for you, but 
you are sure you don’t despise me for being 
willing to give them up ?” 

147 


DR. HONORA. 


“ Well, no, naturally, I feel rather proud; 
but don’t worry or feel that you might not have 
been able to do your part even if I had been 
called to Corea. No, thank God, there isn’t a 
place in the world where such work as yours 
is not in demand, and, above all else, the world 
needs strong, gentle women physicians, and, 
Honora, that reminds me, I, too, have a con¬ 
fession to make. I had a contempt for pro¬ 
fessional women until I met you, but the calm 
way in which you handled Jessie’s case, and 
kept yourself through all a sweet, true, modest 
woman, conquered me. I think now women 
should enter all the professions, and if the 
ranks become overcrowded let the men step 
out. It might be a good thing for our pro¬ 
fession.” 

Honora gleefully suggested that he write 
up his views for a leading medical journal, in 
order to learn how many of his brothers 
would agree with him. And so in wisely 
foolish lover-talk the evening passed, and if 
they sat there until but few hours were left 
for sleep, who shall blame them? Must a 
man both write and follow his own prescrip¬ 
tions ? 

“ Water-Cress Farm,” the home of Dr. 
Bragg, is now more seriously known as a 
148 


DR. HONORA. 


“ lovers’ resort.” Many an invalid has won 
health in its fields; many an orphan has 
learned the meaning of home. Both Dr. 
Bragg and his wife devote their lives to the 
sick and helpless, and their home is an or¬ 
phanage and a hospital ; yet they find times 
to be alone, and in these intervals of quiet to¬ 
gether new strength is given them to go on 
with their home-mission work. 


149 


THE HOME SIDE. 


“ You ask how and why we decided to keep 
house instead of boarding ? Well, I will tell 
you. But first let me tuck you up in this 
cozy corner,—now be comfortable.” 

While I rested amongst a wealth of pillows 
on the most luxurious couch I had ever 
known, Alice drew a rocker up beside me and 
sat down for a long-anticipated chat. Alice 
and I were old friends. I knew that she had 
wanted for years to study medicine, but many 
reasons had prevented. At last, however, 
she wrote me that she was really at work, 
and begged me to come and see her at her 
cozy rooms in the Quaker city. So it was 
that I found her established, not in a typical 
boarding-house, as I had expected, but in a 
veritable home. Helen North and Lucia 
Bridge, two congenial friends, lived with 
her, and the three made a most happy family. 
I happened to arrive just at luncheon time, 
and with quick hospitality another chair was 

150 




“ Watching for the Oysters to Curl Their Tails. 












THE HOME SIDE. 


drawn up to their round table, and I was wel¬ 
comed to a share of the dainty meal. Now, 
all cleared away and her “ family,” as she 
laughingly called them, off to a junior quiz, 
we settled down for an old-fashioned talk. 

“ I am going back to the beginning,” said 
Alice. “ When I entered I expected to be 
able to go right on, but there came the failure 
of the bank and I had but little money left. I 
took a cheaper room, bought a small oil stove, 
and prepared my own food. It proved an 
economical measure, but I was very lonely. 
The next year Helen wrote that she was going 
to enter college, and she asked me to engage 
a room for her. I took the one adjoining 
mine, and when she came and I found that 
she, too, must take note of her pennies, we 
combined forces and resources and spent a 
delightful year. Lucia came to us this year, 
and we feel that our family circle is com¬ 
plete.” 

“ I see how cozy you are, but does it really 
lessen expenses ?” I asked. 

“ Yes,” Alice answered, “ it does in many 
ways. We have two rooms for three people, 
with use of the cellar and refrigerator. Our 
little stove serves to keep us all warm, and it 
requires but little more work to prepare meals 

151 


THE HOME SIDE. 


for three than for one. Besides, there are three 
to share the labor.” 

“ What advantages are there besides the 
economical ones ?” 

“ We have a home. Here we have our 
books, pictures, and home treasures. We are 
congenial and enjoy the same things. Helen 
plays, and we all enjoy her music. We manage 
to read some of the books of the day, and 
sometimes we all go to hear the Boston Sym¬ 
phony Orchestra. The gallery seats are just 
as good as any, and we don’t mind going 
early. 

Another great advantage is this : we avoid 
the general gossip of the college. To be sure, 
we do sometimes look amazed when some 
particularly startling piece of news comes to 
light, and the girls who meet in large board¬ 
ing-houses look upon us with pity, but we feel 
that we are able to survive, notwithstanding. 
Do we have company often? Yes ; I should 
say so. It is so convenient to be able to bring 
friends in to luncheon, or have them come to 
dinner. I must tell you of one little experi¬ 
ence. Some friends of ours, who live at the 
Gladstone, have been very anxious about us. 
They were afraid we were not getting enough 
to eat, and invited us to dinner several times. 
152 


THE HOME SIDE. 


One evening we invited them to tea, and they 
came. We had made our preparations before¬ 
hand, and when they arrived there was little 
to do beyond making the coffee and cooking 
the oysters. We put Mrs. A. among the 
pillows, where you are, and gave the Judge 
the big chair. You can not imagine how in¬ 
terested they were. The Judge told us that 
he always cooked the oysters when out camp¬ 
ing, and so we promptly invited him out to 
the other room to cook ours. It was a funny 
thing to see him with one of my big, checked 
aprons tied around his ample waist, bending 
over the chafing-dish, and watching for the 
oysters to curl their tails. How much they 
enjoyed our Boston baked beans and the 
turkey salad! They never thought of us as 
starving mortals after that. 

By the way, that turkey salad has a history. 
When I came back after the Christmas vaca¬ 
tion, I brought with me a sixteen-pound 
turkey. The girls held up their hands in 
astonishment, and prophesied that the cooking 
would be more than we could manage. We 
borrowed the largest kettle our landlady 
owned, cut the turkey into small pieces, and 
boiled it until the meat was so tender it fell 
from the bones. This was packed in glass 
i53 


THE HOME SIDE. 


jars, sealed, and put upon the pantry shelf. 
With a bunch of celery and a bottle of salad 
dressing, the evolution of a turkey salad is 
an easy matter. 

Where do we sleep ? My dear, that is 
my bed you are reposing upon now. Quite 
an Oriental couch, is it not, with all those 
shawls and pillows ? But at night I just un¬ 
dress it, and you find it is a mattress upon a 
wooden frame. Helen’s bed is folded up 
under yonder mantel drapery, and Lucia has 
a cot with spring mattress. Will you not 
stay over-night ? We have an extra cot. 

We are doing some outside work. Lucia 
teaches Latin and literature in a big school 
down town; Helen teaches four nights in the 
week, and I use the typewriter, but all these 
things are only a change of occupation and 
do not seriously interfere with the college 
work, or if they do, and we fail to pass our 
finals, we will take another year. 

Now, you ask just what our expenses are. 
Our food, oil, etc., costs each one of us from 
one dollar and a quarter up to one dollar and 
forty cents a week. We can do our own 
washing, but if not able to manage that, it will 
cost twenty-five to fifty cents a week. Room 
rent ranges from one dollar a week to three. 
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THE HOME SIDE. 


We have two rooms, and each of us pays one 
dollar a week. I am sure if many of those 
who are hesitating to enter college because of 
narrow income could know how comfortable 
we are on so small a sum, they would not 
delay longer.” 

Memories of that afternoon,—the delightful 
supper when the “ family ” gathered about the 
cozy round table, the delicious toast made 
while we sat at table, by using a long-handled 
toaster that reached to the little stove near us, 
the jests and laughter of those merry girls,— 
linger with me yet. And although my earnest 
student friends have earned their diplomas 
and are in active practice, I hear that others 
are following their example and that college 
homes are multiplying. 


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